Pripyat, Chernobyl (part 2 of 2)

Pripyat & Chernobyl Travel Blog: http://nickylarkin.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/chernobyl-vodka-cancer/

New film project, Forty Shades of Grey (Israel/Palestine)
www.facebook.com/fortyshades

www.nickylarkin.com

A short film by Irish artist Nicky Larkin, shot in Pripyat, in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
The city of Pripyat was once considered the finest place to live in the whole of the Soviet Union. A thoroughly modern city, it was built in 1970 to house the workers of the new Chernobyl nuclear power plant and their families, and was once a happy home to 50,000 people. In the aftermath of the accident in Chernobyl in April 1986, the residents of Pripyat were instructed to pack one suitcase and told they would be returning in three days. One thousand buses were drafted in from all across the Soviet Union to take the residents of Pripyat out of their now highly contaminated homes. They never returned. 21 years later Pripyat stands empty, a ghost town deep within the Chernobyl exclusion zone, the last remaining Soviet city. This haunting experimental film by Irish artist Nicky Larkin takes you inside Pripyat and examines the relationship between time, nature and culture, in a city that will never be lived in again.

Selected for The Locarno Film Festival 2008, Switzerland, The European Media Art Festival 2008, Germany, and The Darklight Film Festival, Dublin.

Shot in September 2007
Running Time - 16 minutes
(Due to youtube limitations, it has been neccessary to split Pripyat into two parts. If you wish to see the unsplit original version with stereo sound, visit www.myspace.com/nickylarkin)

Nicky Larkin has a solo show in The Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, in October 2008, where he will create large-scale multi-screen video and sound installations based on his visit to Pripyat.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Pripyat
• Chernobyl
• Nicky
• Larkin
• Birr
• Nuclear
• Disaster
• Soviet
• Union
• Tarkovsky
• Stalker
• Bela
• Tarr
• carl
• montgomery
• yuri
• tartachuck
• birr
• offaly
• ireland
• israel
• palestine
• forty
• shades
• of
• grey
• dead
• cats

[tommica]

absolutely fantastic film. i would really like visit chernobyl myself too.

[rottenpeaches]

that squirel at 4:25 really scared me. i didnt expect that.

awesome work! i would love to go someday.

[triggerhappy097]

Where there ever any prisoners that got left behind :O

[ShAAnEc057]

if you ever want to go there, just play cod4 :)

[tetehalo]

So.... Quiet......

[melindastrassekonig]

Great video

[mandrax360]

what a great 2 part vid . call of duty 4 not only stole a part of children's lives but gave back a little history of a event long forgotten . the song '' big in japan by alphaville'' comes to mind.

[drberto]

5:53 I think that pics of Lenin,Stalin,Gorbachev etc you can find only in Pripyat nowdays,cause it is the last Soviet city...

[metalux1971]

@SChique00 you are a moron , i wrote it with IRONY, but perhaps you are to stupid to understand(read also my other comment)

[SChique00]

@NIkoFH

It was a bit like the Pharoah tombs in the Egyptian pyramids; once the town was abandoned, looters and gangsters invaded the place, and took most objects of value (you see, everyone was only allowed to take one suitcase with them, so most possessions were left behind). That, combined with the weather extremes and the fact that noone's lived there for 24 years, also adds to the general decay. I think there's a video of looters in Prypiat taking lots of home heaters. Disgusting, really.

[SChique00]

@aviator147 You can. You can get special permission from the Ukranian government; they operate guided tours. Sort of twisted in my opinion; people making money even on a tragedy of this scale, but I suppose each to their own. I would personally love to visit too, but I believe it's a mystery that should only be admired from afar.

[SChique00]

@TheThinkTanksKid

they say that it'll take up the 900 years before the radiation will fully abate, but i say more than that. but it's a relatively safe level for human presence, with the exception of the radioactive lichen and moss spots scattered across the town.