Decay screening | Ukrainian film festival 2026

Director: Mykhailo Belikov

Genre: Drama  Year: 1990  Duration: 101 min

Language: Ukrainian and Russian with English and Ukrainian subtitles

The first fiction feature made about the Chornobyl disaster. On the eve of the accident the journalist Oleksandr Zhuravlov returns to Kyiv, to his family and to the friends of his childhood. The next day the ordinary course of events changes for good. The state conceals the true scale of what has happened; Zhuravlov refuses to accept the official account and sets out to establish the truth. Two further strands run alongside his: the newlyweds Valerii and Liuba, who slip away from their own wedding and end up inside the contaminated zone, and a boy who is left behind in Prypiat with his cat, because the cat could not be taken out.

Introduced by the film scholar and archivist, Stanislav Menzelevskyi, in person.

Presented in partnership with the Centre for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CEREES) at Queen Mary University of London.

The screening follows the symposium ‘Visualising Chornobyl: Ukraine and Beyond’, marking the fortieth anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster, which takes place on 18 September at Queen Mary University of London. The symposium is organised by CEREES at Queen Mary University of London and the British Association for Slavonic & East European Studies (BASEES).