Just got back from watching Tankograd, a documentary from Denmark about the Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theatre, a modern dance company in Chelyabinsk, Russia, the most radioactively polluted city in the world. The film was screened here in Toronto as part of the annual Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
From the film's website:
"The region's inhabitants have been exposed to radioactive contamination 20 times higher than Chernobyl.
The name Tankograd (Tank City) derives from the city's mass-production of Soviet weaponry and tanks for the Second World War.Featuring an eerily beautiful soundtrack by Ghost Society, Tankograd is a lyrical film which combines the humbling heaviness of the city's residents with a sprinkle of beauty, expression and hope through dance.
It was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear bomb.
Chelyabinsk expanded its nuclear production and went on to become one of the Soviet secret cities during the cold war. During the 1950s and 1960s many severe nuclear accidents and spills occurred at the city's nuclear plant, Mayak, located just 50 miles north of the of the city center.
Today the former nuclear missile factory operates as a storage facility for nuclear waste from Russia, USA and Europe."
The Hot Docs festival runs until May 9th, but you can also check out past Canadian documentaries for free on the Hot Docs Doc Library website.
4 comments:
Hmmm, sounds like a good movie.
And Ghost Society's quite catchy...
With my average google abilities I couldn't find info about an album though! :(
I'm not sure if Tankograd has a soundtrack out, but Ghost Society has an EP called "Dogs and Desperation" and their debut album is titled "The Back of His Hands, Then The Palm" if that helps!
I love the way they clap in unison at the beginning of the video.
Thanks a lot Hilary.
Already listened to "Dogs and Desperation" two times.
Eerily, yup! Calm & melancholic vocals. Like it!
Tankgorod will have to wait. Still nowhere to be found online. :)
Didn't notice the clapping in the beginning.
Browsed through Hot Docs Doc Library! A lots of goodies there.
If you like the soundtrack you should look up BLUEFOUNDATION as well. That was the name of the group before the split up.
Boris Bertram made another documentary called DIPLOMACY before TANKOGRAD.
Cheers -
THE DANE
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