When It Blinds, Open Your Eyes

A documentary about the parents of director Ivette Löcker, who have been living apart in their shared home for 20 years.

After the catastrophe in 1986, a 30-km restricted zone was erected around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and 116,000 persons were evacuated from this area. Pripyat is a portrait of the people who still live and work there, and of those who have moved back. What is life like for these people, a life with the invisible and incomprehensible danger of radioactivity? How do they deal with the aftereffects of an accident which is claimed to be statistically improbable? Four protagonists tell their stories and provide a look at everyday life in “their“ zone.

Victoria and Siaka, an Austrian-Gambian couple in their mid-30s in Vienna, are in love, but being together has not been without turmoil. As they work on a relationship between two continents, the foundations are laid for their shared future as a family.

Anya and Seryozha, eighteen and nineteen years old, have been close friends since school. They live in Mariupol, an industrial city in southeastern Ukraine. The film shows snapshots from the life of young people searching for who they want to be and how they want to live. They move between autonomy and uncertainty, rebellion and melancholy. They are full of imagination and willpower.