Seventy years ago this month the bombing of Hiroshima showed the appalling destructive power of the atomic bomb. Mark Cousins’ bold new documentary looks at death in the atomic age, but life too. Using only archive film and a new musical score by the band Mogwai, Atomic shows us an impressionistic kaleidoscope of our nuclear times: protest marches, Cold War sabre rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima, but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how X Rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. The nuclear age has been a nightmare, but dreamlike too.
It’s the late 1990s, and Granada indie music group Los Planetas is about to record their third album. But with the band in turmoil, they find themselves on the brink of success…or total destruction. Can they come together against all odds or collapse in a ball of fire?
“Our only hope is the EU,” says Tímea Szabó, who has been fighting against the Orbán system for years. Though it is also the EU that has sent money to Hungary, knowing full well how blatantly the democratic structures are being eroded there. The film portrays three women fighting against the autocrat – in their country and, with it, the whole of Europe because Orbán serves as a prime example for others.