Press room

Marking the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster this April, Barbican Cinema presents Cold War Visions: Nuclear Anxiety in the Eastern Bloc, a season of films exploring nuclear anxiety and Cold War tensions east of the Iron Curtain, with titles from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union.   

The prospect of a nuclear attack during the Cold War captured the imaginations of filmmakers from both sides of the Wall. Yet most canonical films on the subject portray a Western perspective.

The season presents seven films that span seven decades. Starting in 1960,  the programme explores different cinematic genres, tones, and artistic approaches, 

culminating in films from the 2020s, showing how nuclear disaster has manifested itself in ways that are different to how 20th century directors had originally envisioned.

The season opens with a 4K restoration of the Czechoslovak film Ikarie XB-1 (1963). In the year 2163, a group of astronauts are sent on a mission to discover life in a new galaxy, only to be confronted with the horrors of their own world. Jindrich Polák's influential film is said to have inspired Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and is a cornerstone of contemporary sci-fi cinema.

This is followed by a UK premiere of the restoration of Bulgarian film The Sun and the Shadow (1962). A summer love story set on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, The Sun and The Shadow contrasts youthful romance with the real threat of nuclear war. Released the year of the Cuban missile crisis this is a unique and underseen gem in world cinema history. 

The Yugoslavian film Atomic War Bride (1960), never before screened in the UK, also features a young couple in love who face the brutal reality of impending war. Global tensions erupt on the day of John and Maria’s wedding, that thrust the newlyweds into a world transformed by fear, mobilization, and the ultimate threat of atomic destruction. 

The season also includes two titles from the legendary Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky; Stalker (1979) is essential viewing, a journey into a world where the laws of reality begin to dissolve. Adapting a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Tarkovsky’s vision of ecological degradation and moral decay remains remarkably prescient. In Tarkovksy’s final film The Sacrifice (Sweden, France & UK 1986) the exiled director explored a world on the brink of nuclear war. As philosophical as ever, Tarkovsky asks questions about the place of spirituality in a modern, technology-driven world. 

There are also two screenings of contemporary films that look at the long-term effects of the Cold War’s nuclear threats that still have an impact on societies today. In his short Chernobyl 22 (2023), celebrated Ukrainian documentarian Oleksiy Radinsky shows the experience of workers in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station during the brief Russian occupation in 2022. Radinsky’s short is paired with Zhanana Kurmasheva’s We Live Here (2025), which documents the experiences of people living near the Semipalatinsk site in Kazakhstan, an area where the Soviet Union conducted a series of nuclear tests for decades, impacting the lives and the health of locals for generations to come.

Cold War Visions Curator Teodosia Dobriyanova says: “The aim of this season is to introduce Barbican audiences to the way filmmakers in the Eastern Bloc presented the nuclear fears of their societies. Although the anxieties of the Cold War didn’t materialise in the way these filmmakers imagined, disasters took place, often covered by the totalitarian governments of the time. Forty years after the Chernobyl disaster, Cold War Visions focuses primarily on retrospectives but concludes with a screening of two contemporary films that examine present realities – Russia’s nuclear terror in Ukraine and the health consequences of the Semipalatinsk nuclear tests in Kazakhstan.”

Screenings

Ikarie XB-1(PG) 
Czechoslovakia 1963, Dir. Jindřich Polák, 86min
Wed 1 Apr, 6.20pm + Wed 8 Apr, 6.20pm 
Cinema 1 + Cinema 3 

Adapted from Stanisław Lem 1955 novel The Magellanic Cloud, Ikarie XB-1 blends space travel and nuclear tensions, some of the Cold War’s defining themes. Jindřich Polák’s visionary work has echoed through cinema history, said to have inspired canonical space-age films, such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek series. 

Beautifully restored in 4K, with striking black and white cinematography and production design that rivals its better-known successors, this screening  will be introduced by season curator Teodosia Dobriyanova.

The Sun and the Shadow (15) (Слънцето и сянката, Slantzeto i syankata) 
Bulgaria 1962, Dir. Rangel Valtchanov, 75min
UK restoration premiere
Tue 7 Apr, 6.30pm 
Cinema 1 

In her first ever film role, Polish actor Anna Prucnal plays a foreign translator travelling to the Bulgarian seaside with a tourist group. On her last day, she meets a young Bulgarian man on the beach played by Georgi Naumov (We Were Young) and the two spend the day together. As they get to know each other, the fear of an imminent nuclear attack overwhelms the translator. 

In its essence, Valtchanov’s film feels like a predecessor to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise. Yet the film’s breathtaking cinematography and creative imagination make it a unique, though underseen, gem in world cinema history. 

The screening will be introduced by season curator Teodosia Dobriyanova.

Atomic War Bride(Rat) 
Yugoslavia 1960, Dir. Veljko Bulajić, 84min
Wed 15 Apr, 8.45pm + Wed 22 Apr, 6.30pm 
Cinema 1 + Cinema 3 

Global tensions erupt and war breaks out on the day of John and Maria’s wedding, thrusting the newlyweds into a world transformed by fear, mobilization, and the ultimate threat of atomic destruction. As their idyllic hopes confront the brutal realities of conflict, Bulajić’s film confronts the true face of war.

Originally titled Rat (War), this powerful feature received a Golden Lion nomination at Venice Film Festival in 1960 but has since been largely forgotten and has never screened in the UK before.

The screening will be introduced by season curator Teodosia Dobriyanova.

Stalker (Сталкер) (PG) 
USSR 1979, Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 162min 
Fri 10 Apr, 6.30pm + Sat 11 Apr, 8.05pm 
Cinema 1

In an unnamed country, a guide known as the Stalker leads two clients into the Zone, a mysterious, restricted area created by an unexplained event. At its centre lies a room said to grant a person’s deepest wish.

Loosely adapted from Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s novel Roadside Picnic, Stalker was filmed in a post-industrial area in Tallinn, Estonia, near a chemical plant. The making of the film was defined by challenges, from a last-minute change in location to a compromised film roll that demanded a complete reshoot. Ultimately, Andrei Tarkovsky, actor Anatoly Solonitsyn, and assistant director Larisa Tarkovskaya died from the same type of cancer, possibly caused by radiation exposure during Stalker’s production.

The Sacrifice (Offret) 12A 
Sweden/France/UK 1986, Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 149min
Fri 24 Apr, 7pm + Sat 25 Apr, 8.30pm 
Cinema 1 

In his final film, exiled cinema master Andrei Tarkovsky explores a world on the brink of nuclear war. Alexander’s (Erland Josephson) idyllic birthday celebrations on a remote Swedish island are interrupted by news about the break of World War III and an imminent nuclear catastrophe. Desperate, he vows to lose everything he loves if it will help prevent the disaster.

As philosophical as ever, Tarkovsky asks questions about the place of spirituality in a modern, technology-driven world.

Nuclear Realities: Chernobyl 22 + We Live Here (12A*)
Wed 29 Apr, 6.30pm 
Cinema 1 

A double bill exploring nuclear terror and the consequences of nuclear disaster in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

We Live Here
Kazakhstan 2025, Dir. Zhanana Kurmasheva, 80min

A haunting debut documenting the ways three generations have been impacted by the Soviet Union’s nuclear tests in the Semipalatinsk Station in Kazakhstan.

In the vast Kazakh steppe researchers work to identify radioactive areas unfit for humans. From the 1940s until 1991, the Soviet Union conducted hundreds of nuclear tests there, claiming there were no human settlements in proximity.

Zhanana Kurmasheva turns her camera to the lives of those living in the radioactive zones – three generations of people, some born way after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, whose lives have been irreversibly impacted by the consequences of the nuclear tests. 

Chernobyl 22
Ukraine 2023, Dir. Oleksiy Radynski, 23min

When Russia briefly occupied the Chernobyl Zone in 2022, a worker at the power plant secretly filmed the Russian troops. 

Celebrated Ukrainian documentary maker Oleksiy Radinski works with personal testimonies and covert documentation to create a powerful account of occupation. The film was developed as part of The Reckoning Project, a forensic effort to investigate and record Russian war crimes in Ukraine

This screening will be introduced by season curator Teodosia Dobriyanova.