The bells of Chernobyl

The documentary “The Bells of Chernobyl “ was made as one of four in a series made in 1991,
co-directed by Jasna Hribernik and Peter Zobec.

The films were made in Ukraine mostly in Kiev, at a time when the collapse of the Soviet Union was strongly felt in the air. The filmmakers recorded this unusual time when the hard hand of the Soviet regime softened. The main film of the series “Chernobyl Bells” is a special document of the spirit of “liberation”, which manifested itself at the first public rock concert in Ukraine, The Bells of Chernobyl as the fifth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and took place at Maidan Square, under Lenin statue. The film features some prominent rock musicians from Ukraine and Russia, artists from Kiev and their friends. Enthusiastic about the rich alternative music scene of Kiev, which consisted of virtuoso young musicians, they dedicated a solo film entitled “Never look me in the eye”. In the film “The Day dies early” Jasna Hribernik and Peter Zobec were the first filmmakers to obtain permission to shoot in the oldest East Slavic sanctuary, the Pečarska Lavra monastery in Kiev. “The Phenomenon of Man” is a film about the Ukrainian folk healer Galina Stahofskaya. Patients from all over the Soviet Union came to her clinic, which had the same status as the state ones. The creators of this documentary series experienced a surrealistic journey in which they felt as if they were entering a film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.