When the Russian troops occupied Ukraine’s Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in the very first hours of their all-out invasion of Ukraine, their activities were documented by the CCTV cameras. Special Operation is based on that footage, recorded at the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. The Russians had turned the territory of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant into a military base in an attempt to occupy the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, located just a hundred miles away. The Russian plan was to stay in Chornobyl for just three days, their imagined time span for Ukraine’s downfall. Instead, the Russians were stuck at the radioactive site for five weeks, only to see their army collapse in the battle for Kyiv.
Country
Ukraine, LithuaniaYear
2025Length
65'
Category
DocumentaryPremiere
Italian
Screenplay
Oleksiy RadynskiEditing
Taras SpivakSound
Vladimir GolovnitskyProduction
Kinotron Group, Studija KinemaDistribution
Kinotron GroupSynopsis
Biography
Oleksiy Radynski is a filmmaker and writer based in Kyiv. His films experiment with documentary forms and practices of political cinema. They have been screened at film festivals and exhibitions worldwide, including International Film Festival Rotterdam, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), e-flux (New York), Taipei Biennial, Docudays (Kyiv), Sheffield Doc Fest, Krakow IFF, DOK Leipzig etc. His film Chornobyl 22 won the Grand Prix at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.
Statement
This film is entirely based on surveillance footage which represents a war crime of nuclear terror: the Russian occupation of Ukraine’s Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. In the film, we observe the activities of Russian troops that are occupying the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, putting the world on the brink of another catastrophe. At the core of this film is an idea to let this footage speak for itself, editing the story based on long shots which represent the criminal activities of Russian troops in an uninterrupted, non-manipulative way. My aim is to put the film’s audience in a position of an immediate witness of an act of nuclear terror.
— Oleksiy Radynski
Archival materials
CCTV footage from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant recorded over a period of five weeks, from 24 February 2022 onwards.
Screenings
