BERLIN

1986. About 90 towns and villages around Chernobyl are evacuated. The failure of an atomic experiment causes a drastic change in the lives of the inhabitants. Pétro and Nadia, a married couple at that time 60 years old, born and raised in Zvizdal, refuse to be evacuated and decide to stay put in the total uncertainty of their old village. Between 2011 and 2016 the Belgian theatre group BERLIN followed Pétro and Nadia in Zvizdal, a ghost town with neither electricity nor running water; but there are superstitions, there is vodka, the muttering, the cursing and praying and singing, the toothaches, the ailments that come with the age, the 20 km walk to the nearest store. “ Zvizdal” is a filmic portrait of uncertainty, solitude, survival, poverty, hope and of love between two elderly people. All around and in between them reigns the colourless, scentless but omnipresent radiation.

With Nadia & Pétro Opanassovitch Lubenoc

Concept Bart Baele, Yves Degryse, Cathy Blisson
Scenography Manu Siebens, Ina Peeters, BERLIN
Interviews Yves Degryse, Cathy Blisson
Camera, editing Bart Baele, Geert De Vleesschauwer
Sound recordings Toon Meuris, Bas de Caluwé, Manu Siebens, Karel Verstreken
Interpreter Olga Mitronina
Soundtrack, mixing Peter Van Laerhoven
Construction set Manu Siebens, Klaartje Vermeulen
Mechanics Joris Festjens
Scale models Ina Peeters
Graphics Jelle Verryckt
Website Stijn Bonjean
Communication, production Laura Fierens
Business management Kurt Lannoye
Administrative support Jane Seynaeve