Brazil meets India: Uranium Film Festival founders Norbert Suchanek & Brazilian Márcia Gomes de Olvieira and the sons of anti-nuclear activist and writer S.P. Udayuakumar from India - Surya (right) and Satya - accepting the Nuclear-Free Future Awards 2025 in New York, Manhatten. Photo by Miguel Silveira
A powerful evening honoring visionary nuclear abolitionists. Unsung heroes of the Atomic Age honored.
Headlined by American avant-garde musical artist Laurie Anderson and in the presence of several filmmakers and producers like Heidi Hutner, Greg Mitchell, Mary Beth Brangan, James Heddle, Jeff Gipe, Ari Beser, Kathleen Sullivan, Miguel Silveira , Kirsten Larvick, Amy Goodman and Emmy award winning producer Robert E. Frye, the 2025 Nuclear-Free Future Awards took place in New York City on March 4 at the historic Great Hall at Cooper Union in Manhattan. Laurie Anderson was joined by Peter Gordon, his son Max and bassist Greg Cohen.
Brazilian-German couple Márcia Gomes de Oliveira from Rio de Janeiro and German Journalist Norbert Suchanek accepted the 2025 Nuclear-Free Future Award in the Category Education. They are the founders of the International Uranium Film Festival that is presenting annually the best films on nuclear power, uranium mining and all radioactive risks since 2011. Márcia Gomes de Oliveira is the first Brazilian to receive the prestigious Nuclear-Free Future Award.
Filmmaker Jeff Gipe described the event as „a powerful evening honoring visionary nuclear abolitionists“. And Robert E. Frye addressed the award-winning couple: „Congratulations on your receiving the Nuclear Free Future Award, it was a well deserved recognition for all the amazing work you two have done over the years in creating the Uranium Film Festival.“
In their acceptance speech Márcia and Norbert quoted great movie director Orson Welles: „ I have wasted the greater part of my life looking for money. Making a movie is about two percent filmmaking and ninety-eight percent hustling for financial support.“ And Norbert added: „We can say the same about making a successful film festival like ours.“ Last year, the couple toured the US with their film festival, screening nuclear films in twelve US cities plus Vancouver in Canada.
Further Nuclear-Free Future Award laureates in New York were S.P. Udayuakumar from India for resistance and Edwina Madzimure from Zimbabwe for solution. Lifetime achievement awards received deep ecologist Joanna Macy and posthumously Native American activist and musician Klee Benally from the Navajo Nation.
Founded in 1998 by journalist, filmmaker and activist Claus Biegert, the Nuclear-Free Future Awards honor the largely unsung heroes of the Atomic Age who work to end uranium mining and rid the world of nuclear weapons, nuclear power and uranium munitions. The 2025 Awards in New York City were co-presented by Beyond Nuclear and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).
