When it comes to nuclear energy awareness, the early springtime brings remembrance of past nuclear power plant accidents that furthered international conversations concerning the safety of atomic power. From the fortunately-contained partial meltdown at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March 1979, to the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in April 1986, to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster following a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, now is as good a time as any to take a closer look at the ongoing effects of nuclear power on our planet.
The Goethe-Institut Washington, in partnership with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, presents a screening of
Wackersdorf (2018), a true story of community, taking a stand against injustice and corruption, and being a local-level politician taking on a much stronger governing power. Oliver Haffner, director of the film, will be present at the screening. Following the film, Haffner and Paul Gunter of the organization Beyond Nuclear will engage in a discussion open to guests.
WACKERSDORF
Germany, 2018, 122 min., Director: Oliver Haffner, Screenplay: Gernot Krää and Oliver Haffner
Schwandorf County, Upper Palatinate, in the 1980s. The Bavarian state government is covertly planning to build an atomic reprocessing plant. And this economically underdeveloped region – with its rising unemployment rate – would seem to be the ideal location.
Hans Schuierer, county commissioner and member of the minority Social Democratic party, is lured by the boost to the local economy promised by the plant. Everything seems off to a good start: supported by his party, and in close cooperation with his political ally, the mayor of Wackersdorf, Hans is soon celebrated as the savior of Schwandorf. The only apprehensions about the plans come from a handful of local eccentrics, whom no one takes very seriously.
Yet when the Bavarian government disregards existing laws and uses brutal force to crush a harmless public protest by a newly founded action group, Hans has his first misgivings. As he begins to ask more and more questions, he painfully realizes that he is only a puppet in a billion-Mark deal orchestrated by powerful industrial and political players.
They have underestimated this simple fellow of few words from the countryside, however. Schuierer, a former bricklayer turned county commissioner, becomes a fervent critic of the processing plant. Fearlessly challenging the state government, he finally voices open opposition. His new course, at odds with his own party, also means a bitter parting from an old friend and political comrade. It also mobilizes a young and ambitious Bavarian deputy minister to suppress the resistance in Wackersdorf.
RSVP
Oliver Haffner was born in 1974 in Germersheim, Rhineland-Palatinate. He grew up in Munich and briefly studied Political Science at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, before transferring and completing his studies in Theater Direction at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. He worked as a director for the stage at the Vienna Festival (
Wiener Festwochen), the
Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, the
Schauspielhaus Bochum, Theater Ulm, the Linz State Theatre, Theater Regensburg, and the State Theater of Lower Austria. He studied Feature Film Direction at the University of Television and Film Munich; his graduation film,
Mein Leben im Off (2010), was his debut feature film, and appeared in many German cinemas.
Wackersdorf is his third feature film. Haffner is a professor of "Media-Specific Representation" (film-acting) at the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg and a freelance lecturer at the Music and Arts University in the City of Vienna. He continues to be active in both theater and film. Haffner lives and works in Munich and Berlin.
Paul Gunter is a lead spokesperson in nuclear reactor hazards and security concerns. He acts as the regulatory watchdog over the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear power industry. He is a 2008 recipient of the Jane Bagley Lehman Award from the Tides Foundation for environmental activism for his work on the nuclear power and climate change issue. He has appeared on
NBC Nightly News,
Lehrer News Hour,
BBC World News, and Amy Goodman's
Democracy Now. He was a cofounder of the antinuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976 to oppose the construction of the Seabrook (NH) nuclear power plant through non‐ violent direct action that launched the US antinuclear movement. Prior to joining Beyond Nuclear he served for 16 years as the Director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for Nuclear Information and Resource Service. An environmental activist and energy policy analyst, he has been an ardent critic of atomic power development for more than 30 years. Paul is a New Englander who was born in Mississippi and raised in Detroit, Michigan.
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