From Chernobyl to Fukushima: The Uranium Film Festival

The Uranium Film Festival (UFF), the world’s only film festival focused on ‘the whole nuclear fuel chain’, is entering its third year in Rio de Janeiro. The organisers Marcia Gomes de Oliveira (Executive Director) and Norbert G. Suchanek (General Director) of the arts and education non-profit Yellow Archives began the festival with the mission of stimulating discussion about topics ranging from uranium mining, nuclear weapons, power plants, and nuclear waste. Rather than adopt a strict anti-nuclear stance the festival endeavors to present films about nuclear issues that audiences might not otherwise be able to access. This ambition to present audiences with information in addition to art (or embedded within art) reflects Leshu Torchin’s conception of the activist film festival as a ‘field of witnessing’. By fostering the conditions for audiences to interact with films as more than merely passive viewers the Uranium Film Festival represents an attempt to elevate the role of the film festival to that of politically-infused public sphere.