Elena is a student in Minsk, Belarus. She has a passionate but increasingly difficult relationship with her boyfriend Victor. When her father is arrested, she has to continue his illegal business. In order to make deals for him, she repeatedly has to drive into the ‚forbidden zone‘ of Chernobyl. She finds herself attracted by the zone’s deceptive beauty – but her life seems more and more contaminated by a destructive force…
It is a film that haunts you and gets under your skin. It is a quiet masterpiece.
Steve Kopian
Awards and Festivals
* Gold Price for Best Directing at the International Film Festival Hof
* ‘NO FEAR’ First Steps Award for Best Production
* First Steps Award for Best Feature (Nomination)
This way of moviemaking is the most useful and the most important for us all.
Edgar Reitz
This impressionistic drama fascinates, without a chronological structure, with dreamlike pictures.
Heike Angermeier
Lothar Herzog has made a visually powerful first feature film with the kind of artistic singularity that makes the cinema d’auteur so attractive.
Bernhard Sinkel
1986 gives a deep insight in the mentality and psyche of Belarus. There are no false notes in this film.
Mikolai Lawreniuk
ROHFILM PRODUCTIONS present 1986 in coproduction with DFFB and WDR in cooperation with ARTE coproducer LOTHAR HERZOG with DARIA MUREEVA EVGENI SANGADZHIEV ALEKSEI FILIMONOV HELGA FILIPPOVA VITALI KOTOVITSKI VJACHESLAV SHAKALIDO ALEKSEI KRAVCHENKO director of photography PHILIPP BABEN DER ERDE art director KIRILL GALITSKI costume ALJONA ROMANOVA make-up TANYA NAGEL-TCHERNOVA assistant director STANISLAV DANYLYSHYN sound JOHANNES KASCHEK editor STEFANIE KOSIK LOTHAR HERZOG HERZOG sound design NIKLAS KAMMERTÖNS TAREK SOLTANI sound mix JAN PASEMANN color correction JAN HARTMANN music FABIAN SAUL RAFAEL TRIEBEL production manager ROMANA JANIK commissioning editor ANDREA HANKE GEORG STEINERT BIRGIT KÄMPER producer BENNY DRECHSEL screenplay and director LOTHAR HERZOG. 77min. 2019/2020.