International Uranium Film Festival

Festival Program

2 pm to 4 pm

SOS - THE SAN ONOFRE SYNDROME: NUCLEAR POWER'S LEGACY

USA, 2023, Directed by James Heddle, Mary Beth Brangan and Morgan Peterson, and produced by Mary Beth Brangan, production: EON - The Ecological Options Network, documentary, 100 min.

A timely and urgent story with global implications. Filmed over 12 years, the documentary dramatically chronicles how Southern California residents came together to force the shutdown of an aging nuclear power plant only to be confronted by an alarming reality: tons of nuclear waste left near a popular beach, only 100 feet from the rising sea, that - with radioactivity lasting millions of years-menaces present and future generations.

The film portrays San Onofre as a microcosm of this national problem - the mismanagement of lethal radioactive waste. This is a syndrome shared by all 55 nuclear reactor sites across the United States. SOS spotlights the essential role citizens must play to ensure public safety is the top priority. Told largely from the perspective of five main characters, the film shows how they mobilize their communities as they become experts on the issues and tactically wiser in the face of adversity.

James Heddle and Mary Beth Brangan, life and work partners, are award-winning documentary video and radio producers, educators, and organizers.

They co-direct EON, the Ecological Options Network, producing documentaries, video reports, and blogs on issues, activists, and organizations globally working for solutions to planetary challenges.

 4 pm to 6 pm

DOWNWIND

USA, 2022, Directed by Mark Shapiro and Douglas Brian Miller. Executive Producers Matthew Modine and Adam Rackoff. Written by Warren Etheredge and Mark Shapiro.

Featuring Martin Sheen, Claudia Peterson, Ian Zabarte, Patrick Wayne, Mary Dickson, Lewis Black, Joseph Musso and Michael Douglas. Documentary, 95 min.

Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Mercury, Nevada? The latter was the site for the testing of 928 largescale nuclear weapons from 1951 to 1992. The Nevada Test Site is located in Mercury, 65 miles from Las Vegas. Over the 41 years of testing at the Nevada Test Site, 100 atomic bombs were detonated above ground from airplanes, towers, cannons and balloons; 828 tests were conducted underground. Downwind of the test site in the 1950s, a number of Hollywood blockbusters were filmed, including the Howard Hughes epic „The Conqueror“ with John Wayne and Susan Hayward. Although „The Conqueror“ location site, in St. George, Utah, was more than 100 miles away, the radiation levels there were so high that when Wayne tested them with a Geiger counter he thought the equipment was broken. „Downwind“ tells the stories of people harmed by the radioactive fallout from the Nevada Test.

Site. www.backlotdocs.com

6 pm to 8 pm

SILENT FALLOUT

USA/Japan, 2023, Director and Producer Hideaki Ito, Assistant Producers: Rieko Tomomatsu, Naomi Sakai, Sachiko Kamakura, Chieko Watanabe, Narrator: Alec Baldwin, Documentary, 76 min

In 2001, baby teeth were found in the Tyson Valley in St. Louis. They were part of 320,000 baby teeth collected for a project half-a-century earlier. Few people now know that the continental US is radioactive. The US has conducted more than 100 atmospheric nuclear tests at home and more than 100 in the Pacific. Ironically, vast amounts of radioactive material generated by the nuclear tests ended up on U.S. soil. The enormous amount of radioactive material produced by the nuclear explosions was carried by the wind across the continent, where it fell to the ground in rain and snow, contaminating pastures, vegetables and water. Everywhere, there were reports of radioactive contamination.

Milk was a special source of concern, given that it was considered an essential source of nutrition for children. Infants, in particular, are extremely susceptible to radiation. Milk from cows feeding on contaminated pastures contained plentiful amounts of Strontium 90.

The strontium entered children's bodies, stayed in their bones, and emitted radiation that attacked their cells. Mothers' nerves were strained to the breaking point. At that point, scientists and mothers in St. Louis launched an ambitious project to measure Strontium 90 in baby teeth to find out if their children were being exposed. The film tells the story of the unknown radioactive contamination of the United States. Written, directed, filmed, edited and produced by Hideaki Ito with the support of a grant from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan. Film director Hideaki Ito is a Japanese television producer and filmmaker. He grew up near Hiroshima. A central figure in Ito’s film is Louise Reiss, a female physician in St. Louis. Along with a group of scientists, she devised the Baby Tooth Survey that was conducted from 1958 to 1970 by Washington University and the Greater St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information.

Free admission