The interview offers a vivid overview of the mission and international reach of the International Uranium Film Festival, currently taking place in Rio de Janeiro. Hosted by David Andersson, the conversation brings together festival founder Norbert Suchanek, filmmaker Zoe Gordon, and Spanish activist and researcher José Herrera Plaza to discuss nuclear energy, radioactive contamination, indigenous struggles, and the role of cinema in raising awareness.
Norbert Suchanek explains that the festival was created in 2010 out of concern that disasters such as Chernobyl disaster were being forgotten while countries like Brazil continued expanding nuclear projects. The objective of the festival was to create a public platform for films addressing uranium mining, radioactive contamination, nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and nuclear energy—topics rarely shown in mainstream cinemas or television. Over the past fifteen years, the festival has evolved into an international network, organizing events not only in Rio but also in places such as Berlin, India, the Navajo Nation, Portugal, Amman, and soon possibly Madrid and Las Vegas.
A central part of the discussion focuses on Zoe Gordon’s film The Moth, a fictional dystopian work co-directed with Indigenous filmmaker Michelle Derozier. The film addresses plans to build a massive deep geological repository for Canada’s nuclear waste in northwestern Ontario, within Indigenous Treaty Three territory. Gordon describes the project as another form of ongoing colonialism, where economically vulnerable and Indigenous communities are pressured into accepting dangerous nuclear infrastructure in exchange for financial compensation and promises of jobs.
She explains that the proposed repository would receive around 136,000 tons of highly radioactive waste transported daily over dangerous roads for decades. Much of the waste originates from southern Ontario near major urban centers like Toronto, yet it is being relocated to remote Indigenous territories rather than stored near the populations benefiting from nuclear energy. Gordon criticizes the consent process, noting that communities along transportation routes were excluded from decision-making and that the project’s economic promises overshadow serious environmental and health concerns.
The interview also highlights broader debates about the economics of nuclear energy. Both Andersson and Gordon argue that the nuclear industry faces increasing financial difficulties as renewable energy becomes cheaper, leading governments and corporations to promote new technologies such as small modular reactors in an attempt to maintain the sector’s viability.
In the latter part of the interview, José Herrera Plaza with Broken Arrow, discusses the 60th anniversary of the Palomares nuclear accident, which occurred near the village of Palomares when U.S. military aircraft carrying hydrogen bombs collided midair, dispersing plutonium contamination across the region. Herrera criticizes both the Spanish and U.S. governments for minimizing the scale of the disaster for decades. According to him, official narratives falsely claimed that nearly all radioactive material had been removed, while in reality, large contaminated areas remain restricted even today.
He further explains that residents of Palomares were unknowingly subjected for decades to long-term radiation monitoring under the secretive “Indalo Project,” turning the local population into subjects of nuclear research without transparency or proper accountability. Herrera denounces the continued lack of full environmental restoration and the political silence surrounding the disaster within Spain.
Throughout the conversation, the participants emphasize the importance of independent cinema and cultural activism in confronting nuclear issues that governments and major media often marginalize. The festival emerges not simply as a film event, but as an international meeting point for artists, researchers, Indigenous voices, and anti-nuclear activists working to expose the human, environmental, and political consequences of radioactive industries.
The interview closes with an invitation from Norbert Suchanek for audiences worldwide to attend future editions of the festival and to continue supporting efforts to raise awareness about uranium mining, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, and the global dangers associated with the nuclear industry.
https://uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/rio-2026-program
