Every day, the world over, large amounts of high-level radioactive waste created by nuclear power plants are placed in interim storages, which are vulnerable to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and to societal changes. In Finland, being hewn out of solid rock and 500 metres below the earth, Onkalo is the world’s first permanent repository of its kind. Supposedly impervious to any event on the surface and far away from any possible earthquake danger, the point is that, to be safe, this gigantic bunker has to last for 100,000 years.
Once the waste has been deposited and the repository is full, the facility is to be sealed off and never opened again.Or so we hope, but can we ensure that? We have, of course, created nothing that has lasted this length of time. And yet Onkalo has to do it.
And how is it possible to warn our descendants of the deadly waste we left behind? How do we prevent them from thinking they have found the pyramids of our time, mystical burial grounds, hidden treasures? Languages might be pointless.
Captivating, wondrous and extremely frightening, this feature documentary takes viewers on a journey never seen before into the underworld and into the future
The film was followed by a Q&A with director Michael Madsen.
