Documentary Films in Competition 2002 / Ljudmilas röst / Sweden 2001
Ljudmila Ignatenko’s stirring recollections of the events of April 1986, which have forever marked her life. The narrator’s sorrow-filled voice describes the Chernobyl disaster in a film that offers a different view of the catastrophe’s still unexplained circumstances, which happened more than 15 years ago.
In April 1986 Lyudmila Ignatenko was five months pregnant when she celebrated her 23rd birthday. She and her husband Vasili lived in Pripyat, a town built near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On the night of April 25th fireman Vasili was called to help with the reactor accident. As he left he said to his wife, “Go back to bed; I’ll wake you when I come home.” This documentary concerns a woman who lost her husband to a catastrophe that happened more than fifteen years ago, but who has yet to receive a satisfactory explanation for any of it. With Lyudmila’s own voice as a guide, the filmmaker returned to the place where joy was exchanged for pain and suffering. This vivid journey into the past, however, testifies to the narrator’s determination not to forget, to hold on to her memories, however painful.
75 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Gunnar Bergdahl
/ Dir. of Photography Anders Bohman
/ Music Pelle Bolander, Björn Knutsson
/ Editor Anette Lykke Lundberg
/ Producer Pelle Roskvist, Alik Špiljuk / Alik Shpilyuk
/ Production FantomFilm Produktion AB ve spolupráci s / in co-operation with: Göteborg Film Festival, Film i Väst
Gunnar Bergdahl (b. 1951, Stockholm) graduated in journalism from the University of Göteborg. He works as a film critic and director of the Göteborg film festival. In 1997 he shot The Voice of Bergman (Bergmans röst). The Voice of Ljudmila is his second feature-length documentary. His latest film, Ingmar Bergman; Intermezzo was screened in the Quinzaine des réalisateurs section at this year´s Cannes IFF.
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