Every nuclear weapon made, every watt of electricity produced from a nuclear power plant leaves a trail of nuclear waste that will last for the next four hundred generations. We face the problem of how to warn the far distant future of the nuclear waste we have buried --but how to do it? How to imagine the far-distant threats to the sites, what kinds of monuments can be built, could stories or legends safeguard our descendants? Filmed at the only American nuclear burial ground, at a nuclear weapons complex and in Fukushima, the film grapples with the ways people are dealing with the present problem and imagining the future. Part observational essay, part graphic novel, this documentary explores the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.
Direction
Graphic novel interludes that visualize impossible futures.
Cinematography
Eerie beauty of Fukushima's poisoned landscapes.
Writing
Philosophical narration that somehow makes waste poetic.
Director
Robb Moss
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'ray cats' concept came from a 1984 German think tank proposal to genetically engineer cats that change color when near radiation, then create folk songs about them.
The film's graphic novel sequences were inspired by actual Department of Energy attempts to design warning markers that outlast human civilization—yes, the government really commissioned 'danger architecture'.
US
