The Forgotten Bomb

The Rosenbergs: Atomic Spies

Based on testimony by Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, the Rosenbergs are arrested by the FBI. The couple is accused of passing secret information about the atomic bomb to the USSR. Though the Rosenbergs maintain their innocence from the start, the media and public opinion seem to have condemned them from day one. The trial does nothing to change this and ends in a death sentence. On Friday June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed in the electric chair. Julius first, then Ethel. 30 years later, the truth finally comes out. Declassified FBI archives reveal that Ethel was not guilty of being a spy; she was merely married to one. Julius did indeed commit espionage for the Soviet Union, though primarily as a recruiter, nothing at all like the fictional James Bond. This documentary, made entirely of archival footage and animated illustrations, offers a tale of espionage as well as a complex family tragedy.

Atomic Reaction

An investigation of Canada's clandestine involvement in the Manhattan Project, from Gilbert LaBine's 1930 discovery of a rare radium deposit in the Northwest Territories to today's ongoing 2.6 billion dollar nuclear waste clean-up project in Port Hope, Ontario. Expert interviews, first hand testimonies, and generational accounts present a nuanced and thought-provoking examination of how these hidden histories have impacted the Indigenous Dene people of the Northwest Territories, Port Hope residents, and other communities worldwide.

A Compassionate Spy

Physicist Ted Hall is recruited to join the Manhattan Project as a teenager and goes to Los Alamos with no idea what he'll be working on. When he learns the true nature of the weapon being designed, he fears the post-war risk of a nuclear holocaust and begins to pass significant information to the Soviet Union.

The Journey

Peter Watkins' global look at the impact of military use of nuclear technology and people's perception of it, as well as a meditation on the inherent bias of the media, and documentaries themselves.

Windscale 1957: The Nuclear Winter

In October 1957, one of the Windscale nuclear reactors caught fire. It was the world's first nuclear accident, attributed to the rush to build atomic weapons. This programme highlights the mistakes leading to a nuclear event which, 40 years on, still takes second place only to Chernobyl.

Test of a clean hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons

Documentary movie about testing of the largest nuclear weapon in history, the Tsar Bomba. Declassified and made available to the public in 2020.

Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History

The American Southwest holds a dark legacy as the place where nuclear weapons were invented and built. Navajo people have long held this place sacred, and continue to fight for a future that transcends historical trauma. This is their story.

Nuclear Rescue 911: Broken Arrows & Incidents

Since 1950, there have been 32 nuclear weapon accidents, known as "Broken Arrows." A Broken Arrow is defined as an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that result in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft or loss of the weapon. To date, six nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered.Now, recently declassified documents reveal the history and secrecy surrounding the events known as "Broken Arrows". There have been 32 nuclear weapon accidents since 1950. Six of these nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered. What does this say about our defense system? What does this mean to our threatened environment? What do we do to rectify these monumental "mistakes"? Using spectacular special effects, newly uncovered and recently declassified footage, filmmaker Peter Kuran explores the accidents, incidents and exercises in the secret world of nuclear weapons.

Mystery Man of the A-Bomb

Stories of the people who built the first atomic weapons are well known. But what about those who provided the uranium? We look at a mysterious man who derived huge profits from the business of war.

Women - For America, For the World

Twenty-two prominent American women discuss their activism for nuclear disarmament and their motivations in seeking the end of the arms race.

Le IIIe Reich n'aura pas la bombe

Dark Circle

This documentary explores the connections between nuclear weapons production, nuclear power, and their human and environmental consequences. Through archival footage and interviews with residents living near the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado—as well as survivors of atomic bombing and nuclear testing—Dark Circle traces the development of the atomic age and its lasting impact on communities exposed to radioactive contamination.

City 40

Hidden in the heart of Russia, there is a Soviet-era city where thousands of people live and work behind barbed-wire fences monitored by armed guards. It is Ozyorsk (Ozersk), located in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, one of the most polluted places on the planet and home to the largest stockpiles of nuclear material. Its code name: City 40.

Nuclear Nightmares

Peter Ustinov hosts this haunting 1980 documentary exploring the world's nuclear weaponry and the fragile system that deters either side from initiating the first nuclear strike. Although the world's political climate has mellowed since the Cold War era, Nuclear Nightmares takes the viewer back in time to gain a perspective of what it was like to live under a very real nuclear threat.

Blowing Up Paradise

Blowing Up Paradise uses color archival footage to chronicle France's explosion of various nuclear devices, in violation of the international test ban treaty, from the first test in 1966 to the last in 1995. Interviews with former and current French government officials, scientists, and nuclear advisors.

Israel's Secret Weapon

"The United States and Britain are preparing to wage war on Iraq, for its undisclosed weapons of mass destruction. Israel's nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities have remained un-inspected. Meanwhile Mordechai Vanunu has been imprisoned for 16 years for exposing Israel's secret nuclear bomb factory to the world. Vanunu is seen as a traitor in his own country. He has been abandoned by most of his family and has spent 11 years in solitary confinement. Today only an American couple, who have legally adopted him, are among the few visitors he is permitted. This film is the story of the bomb, Vanunu and Israel's wall of silence."

Windscale: Britain's Biggest Nuclear Disaster

Film revealing how political ambition fuelled the Windscale fire of 1957 and then dictated that the heroes of Windscale be made the scapegoats.

Iran, Israël et la bombe

In Time's Shadow

Drawing upon eye-witness accounts from survivors and participants in the bombing of Hiroshima, this programme shows how both Japan and the United States are still facing enormous problems in coming to terms with the legacy of that fateful August day.

Prophecy

This rare documentary is one of the very last efforts from preeminent documentarist/activist Susumu Hani best known for his feature films. This one is a short documentary about the 1945 atomic bombing and its devastating consequences. The film came out of the "10 Foot Movement". A movement organized by the Japan Peace Museum, which mobilized Japanese citizen activists to buy back small segments of film footage of the effects of the atomic bomb from the U.S. National Archives. The film combines recent footage of survivors of the atomic bomb with American archival footage, portraying the sorrow of atomic bomb survivors in the Cold War period.