DIE REISE ZUM SICHERSTEN ORT DER ERDE / JOURNEY TO THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH

DIE REISE ZUM SICHERSTEN ORT DER ERDE / JOURNEY TO THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH

Director: Edgar Hagen
Documentary  | CH | 2013
100 min

47th Hof International Film Festival
2013

Over the last 60 years, more than 350,000 tons of highly radioactive atomic waste have accumulated around the world; waste which must be safely deposited some place where it will remain harmless for mankind and the environment for thousands of years. But as yet there is no final disposal site, while the production of atomic waste continues.

The nuclear physicist and internationally renowned permanent storage expert Charles McCombie and some of his most important associates give the director Edgar Hagen insight into their persistent struggle to rectify this fatal dilemma and find the safest place on earth. Their search takes them to the most diverse corners of the world – through densely populated areas in Switzerland to a nomad family in China’s Gobi Desert and on to demonstrators in the forests of Gorleben in Germany and at further locations in the USA and Europe. At all of these places, reason, democracy and scientific honesty are put up against factual constraints, strategies and fears. And questions are raised regarding our present actions and our responsibility toward future generations: can or should a final disposal project be carried out against citizens’ will?

It seems there is no quick solution to this conflict.