Cesium-137

The film is set in Goiânia, in Brazil, in 1987. Two paper collectors find a capsule at an abandoned site. They have no idea what it is. They take it to a scrapyard and sell it. The scrap dealer opens the capsule. What is inside is caesium 137, and it is radioactive. The glowing powder draws people’s interest. It passes from hand to hand and into houses. Within a short time more than two hundred and fifty people are exposed to it. The symptoms appear one after another. At first nobody understands what is happening. It became the worst radiological accident in the history of Brazil. The film tells it from the side of the people who lived through it. The part played by ignorance and by negligence is visible. Nelson Xavier and Joana Fomm appear in the ninety five minute film, a Brazilian production Roberto Pires finished in 1990.