METAMORPHOSEN

DOCUMENTARY, 84 min

On the Southern Urals, in what used to be Russia, a still and snowy bucolic landscape with a few trees evokes a photograph rather than a film, and yet something is pulsating beneath the apparent stillness.
On September 1957, a threatening dark cloud appeared on the sky. The water became an endless source of toxicity and the nearby population started to suffer all kinds of diseases and physical problems. This was the result of incidents inside a nuclear power plant in Russia, which were silenced for years by the government and were close to the levels of radioactivity of Chernobyl or Fukushima, a contamination that extended for approximately 12,000 sq miles. The necessity and urgency –two key elements of documentary cinema– of registering such a place and its population is related to the imperceptible but constant changes that still take place today in front of the camera. The metamorphosis is the one of the landscape, the animals, and the people still living there. It’s the change that occurs when nothing seems to change.

DIRECTOR & PRODUCER  Sebastian Mez // ASSISTANT DIRECTOR  Renata Kosenko // CINEMATOGRAPHY  Sebastian Mez // FILM EDITOR  Katharina Fiedler // SOUNDDESIGN  Levitate

Festivals
Berlinale 2013 / Germany
BAFICI in Buenos Aires / Argentina
Visions du Réel in Nyon / Switzerland
Festival IndieLisboa in Lisboa / Portugal
Crossing Europe in Linz / Austria
Documenta Madrid / Spain
fünf seen film festival / Germany
Monterrey International Film Festival / Mexico
Santiago International Film Festival / Chile
Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York / USA
First Steps Award 2013 / Germany
Honest Planet International Film Festival / France
International Film Festival Serra da Estrela / Portugal
International Documentary Encounter Columbia / Columbia
Tales From Planet Earth Film Festival / USA
Signes de Nuits Paris / France
Kasseler Dokfest / Germany
Sao Paulo International Film Festival / Brazil
CPH:DOX Copenhagen 2013 / Denmark
Planet in Focus Film Festival 2013 / Canada
ArtDoc Film Festival Moscow 2013 / Russia
Cameraimage 2013 Bydgoszcz / Poland
Festival dei Popoli Florenz / Italy
No Nukes Film Festival Taipei / Taiwan
This Human World Film Festival in Vienna / Austria
Doc Point Helsinki Documentary Festival 2014 / Finland
Ambulante Gira de Documentales / Mexico
Salem Film Fest 2014, Massachusetts / New England, USA
One World Film Festival 2014 Prague / Czech
Festival International du Film des Droits de L‘Homme Paris / France
Environmental Film Festival Washington 2014 / USA
Eurodoc 2014 – European Documentary Film Festival Oslo / Norway
Ecofalante de Cinema Ambiental São Paulo / Brazil
Trento Film Festival / Italy
Festival International de Films de Fribourg / Switzerland
Human Rights Arts & Film Festival Melbourne / Australia
Espiello International Film Festival Sobrarbe / Spain
FICA 2014 Festival Internacional de Cinema Ambiental / Brazil
DokuFest Prizren / Kosovo
Riga International Film Festival 2Annas / Latvia
Nova Cinema Brussels / Belgium
Verzio Human Rights Film Festival Budapest / Hungary
Bilbao Mendi Film Festival / Spain
Green Film Festival Seoul / South Korea
EcoZine Film Festival in Zaragoza / Spain