Chernyavska, Tetyana, and Rainer Ludwigs. Leonid’s Story. Germany/Ukraine: Image-Building, 2011. Animated, 19 min. https://youtu.be/CbcQL_IvH24.
A Soviet family searching for a modest paradise is swept into an immense disaster. This magical animated film combines drawing, photography and documentary video to capture the surreal emotions of the too-real tragedy—Chernobyl 1986. Leonid grew up in the village next to the reactor. The catastrophe broke his life, ruined his health, and threatened his unborn child. Yet his work takes him right into the contaminated zone. This animated film tells his story and comprehends the development of this world disaster through the destiny of the protagonist and his family. The small episodes reconstruct the emotional dimension of the tragedy: the children who run to the burning reactor to get a look on the spectacular drama, the unsuspecting village people in the surrounded area, the animals which remain behind after the evacuation, and the helpless tries of mankind to eliminate the follows of the nuclear disaster, accompanied with the faceless, communist Soviet system. After all there is a happy end—the triumph of life over the catastrophe. (Source: Official Film Website)
© 2011 Image-Building. Trailer used with permission.
This film is available at the Rachel Carson Center Library (RCC, 4th floor, Leopoldstrasse 11a, 80802 Munich) for on-site viewing only. For more information, please contact library@rcc.lmu.de.
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