"On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat exploded and began spewing radioactive smoke and gas. Firemen discovered that no amount of water could extinguish the blaze. More than 40,000 residents in the immediate area were exposed to fallout 100 times greater than that from the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. But the most serious nuclear accident in history had only begun.

Based on top-secret government documents that came to light only in the Nineties, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, THE BATTLE OF CHERNOBYL reveals a systematic cover-up of the true scope of the disaster, including the possibility of a secondary explosion of the still-smoldering magma, whose radioactive clouds would have rendered Europe uninhabitable. The government effort to prevent such a catastrophe lasted for more than seven months and sacrificed the lives of thousands of soldiers, miners and other workers.

The consequences of this catastrophe continue today, with thousands of disabled survivors suffering from the "Chernobyl syndrome" of radiation-related illnesses, and the urgent need to replace the hastily-constructed and now crumbling sarcophagus over the still-contaminated reactor. As this remarkable film makes clear, THE BATTLE OF CHERNOBYL is far from over."

"Truly powerful and moving... contains an impressive amount of incredibly powerful and valuable archival information, as well as some revealing interviews."—Vitaly Cheernetsky, KinoKultura: New Russian Cinema

"An epic documentary."—Variety

"Powerful... an important film... Because so much of the story has been forgotten or concealed, the film's momentum never flags."—American Society for Environmental History Newsletter