Chernobyl40

On April 26, 2026, Ukraine marks the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. But for Ukrainians, this is not a static commemoration — it is the brutal intersection of two catastrophes: the invisible radiation of 1986 and the kinetic violence of a four-year invasion. "Chernobyl40" documents how these layered crises coexist in daily life, shaping a contemporary Ukrainian identity.

At the center of this story is a continuity of human sacrifice. In 1986, Ukrainians gave their lives to contain a disaster that threatened all of Europe; today, they stand on the front line against Putin's authoritarianism. The project follows intimate, original access to characters like Nicolai, a turbine operator on duty the night of the 1986 explosion, whose son is now missing at the front — and Ksenia, a mother from Kramatorsk, whose flight from the current invasion tragically mirrors her own mother's displacement from the Chernobyl region forty years earlier.

A film co-directed with Matteo Placucci.