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The Babushkas of Chernobyl
Tuesday, June 28, 2022 to Thursday, June 30, 2022
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The Babushkas of Chernobyl is part of the Sustainable Woodstock Climate Change and Sustainability Film Series
June 28-30, 2022
Free Screening. Register for The Babushkas of Chernobyl here: babushkasofchernobyl.eventbrite.com
30 years after the Chernobyl disaster, some 100 women fiercely cling to their ancestral homeland inside the radioactive “Exclusion Zone.” While most of their neighbors have long since fled and their husbands have gradually died off, this stubborn sisterhood is hanging on — even, oddly, thriving — while trying to cultivate an existence on toxic earth. Why do they insist on living on farms that the Ukrainian government and radiation scientists have deemed uninhabitable? How do they manage to get by, isolated, in an abandoned landscape guarded by soldiers, and rife with wild animals? How has the radiation affected them these past 3 decades? At her cottage, Hanna Zavorotyna brews homemade moonshine and slices thick chunks of salo, raw pig fat – though it is strictly forbidden to eat local food. “Starvation is what scares me, not radiation,” she says. That stark choice reveals an incredible journey the women have traveled: from Stalin’s enforced famines in the 1930s, through Nazi occupation, to nuclear disaster. Like the wolves, moose, wild boar and other wildlife not seen for decades that have come back to the abandoned forests around Chernobyl, the women of the Exclusion Zone, too, have an extraordinary story of survival, and offer a dark yet strangely affirming portrait of life post-apocalypse.
Run Time: 1 hr 24 mins
Send us a note after you view the film. We would love to hear your thoughts and reactions! If you appreciate this free film series please consider donating to Pentangle Arts and supporting our local arts community. pentanglearts.org/get-involved/donations
For more details about Sustainable Woodstock and to get tickets, visit sustainablewoodstock.org.
Hosted by Sustainable Woodstock and Pentangle Arts. Made possible by our underwriters VERMONT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION and MASCOMA BANK and sponsors Ellaway Group | The Unicorn | Yankee Bookshop | Mark Knott DDS.
