Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes

James Jones's 2022 documentary rests on archive footage uncovered thirty-six years after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Material shot by Soviet cameramen and never shown at the time reveals the conditions in which the soldiers and firefighters assigned to the cleanup worked. Interviews with people who were present accompany it. The film's strength is that it uses no dramatic reconstruction: everything is footage shot on the day. How long the Soviet leadership delayed information, and how many people it knowingly put at risk, is built from documents. That is what separates it from the television dramatisation: there is no fiction. Images of radiation injury and of death are extremely hard. Who it's for: viewers interested in Chernobyl, Soviet information control and archive documentary. Who it's not for: anyone unprepared for images of radiation injury and death, or unable to take the scenes of animals being culled.