PuSh Festival presents BERLIN (Belgium) - Zvizdal (Chernobyl – so far so close)
Members of the Antwerp-based art collective BERLIN spent five years filming Nadia and Pétro Opanassovitch Lubenoc, an elderly couple living deep within the irradiated Chernobyl exclusion zone in a place called Zvizdal
Date/Time: Feb 2 2019, 8:00 pm to 9:20 pm
Vancouver, Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre | Event calendar181 Roundhouse Mews
P: 604.449.6000
Tickets
Cost: $39.00
Find tickets: here
Alone, isolated—the nearest shop is 20 kilometres away—and convinced that they have grown immune to the radiation, the couple refuses to leave, despite the entreaties of officials, friends and family…
This deeply affecting documentary-installation inserts live shots of three miniature models of Nadia and Pétro’s homestead, while examining the couple’s lives in detail. The intimacy here is astonishing and very moving; it is clear that the artists and the couple formed a deep bond during their time together. What emerges in the work is a portrait of loneliness, survival, poverty, hope and unconditional love.
"Slowly and sensitively, a remarkable portrait is created, offering no simple answers to the questions that arise, even the central one of why Pétro and Nadia chose to stay. ‘This is how it is,’ they say, and in that moment it seems that theirs is not a choice after all, but a necessity."—Irish Times
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