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This year's Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) hosted the world premiere of the Ukrainian documentary "Special Operation" directed by Oleksiy Radynskyi.
The film tells the story of the events at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant during the Russian occupation. It was shown in the Forum Expanded program, which specializes in experimental cinema.
The film was created with the support of The Reckoning Project, which documents Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The film consists of recordings from surveillance cameras installed at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which recorded the capture of the plant, events during the occupation, and the retreat of Russian troops. Thanks to the employees of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, this video footage was preserved and included in the criminal case.
The producer of the film is Lyuba Knorozok, who said that the film is the result of cooperation between the documentary filmmakers and the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
A frame from the film
“This film is the result of the painstaking work of our team together with the Laboratory of Public Interest Journalism for almost three years. This unprecedented cooperation of documentary filmmakers with the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine is an example of how to remind the international community that war crimes have no statute of limitations,” she said.
Director Oleksiy Radynskyi calls his work an “experimental film.” The film contains no dialogue. Only the image of the occupiers tells the story of what was happening on the territory of the nuclear power plant.
A frame from the film
“The film turns the audience into direct witnesses to the occupation, which unfolds during the broadcast from surveillance cameras,” the director noted.
Interestingly, last year at the Berlinale, they showed the film "Peaceful People" by Oksana Karpovich, which was based entirely on intercepted conversations between the occupiers and their relatives. We didn't see them, but we heard their voices. Now we have the opposite situation: we only see them.
A frame from the film
Editing a picture from hundreds of hours of filming, its authors, however, did not try to build any special dramatic effects. We see some chaotic movements of people and equipment, filming propaganda reports, etc. All this looks somehow pathetic and senseless. The camera shoots from above, creating at first glance the effect of detached observation of what is happening below. The occupiers' rummaging in the corridors of the station's office premises and the inappropriate appearance of the "journalists" who take close-ups of the brought bread sometimes even cause a comic effect.
“Nothing discredits the Russian army better than a simple documentary portrayal of Russian soldiers,” the director added.
However, the overall impression remains eerie.
The work with sound is also interesting: the surveillance cameras do not record sound, so the phonogram was played back later. We hear everything except human voices. They appear only a few times during the film somewhere in the background, and these are the voices of Ukrainian radio hosts. The director leaves the occupiers voiceless. And this creates a strong emotional feeling of "outsiders."
Overall, the combination of very precise cinematic techniques and dispassionate images from surveillance cameras ultimately produces a strong emotional impact.
The authors of the film, answering the audience's questions, emphasized that Russia's nuclear terror concerns not only the occupation of the Chernobyl NPP. The Zaporizhzhia station is also occupied, which is a direct violation of international law. They also recalled that on the eve of the premiere, on the night of Thursday to Friday, February 14, Russian drones attacked the sarcophagus of the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl NPP.
