Fission Impossible?

Time to wake up and smell the coffee…?

n 1970s Greystones, you were never more than five feet away from a Nuclear Power, No Thanks badge…

And that was true around the country too, and right around the globe, most people viewing nuclear power as humanity’s one-way ticket straight to oblivion.

Which was understandable, and more than a little justified by the likes of 1979’s Three Mile Island accident in the US and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union.

But today, there are a growing number of people who now see nuclear power as the way out of our current energy crisis, an option that’s actually far more green than mean, despite the general public perception.

It’s these people that filmmaker Frankie Fenton – who previously gave us the Simon FitzMaurice documentary It’s Not Dark Yet – set out to talk to for his latest offering, Atomic Hope, coming to The Whale on Thursday, June 8th. A screening for which the filmmaker himself plus energy systems engineer and 18for0 founder Sarah Cullen will be present for a Q&A.

Before the big day, we asked Frankie to outline just how his controversial film came together…

Environmental films can be tough; tough to make and sometimes even tougher to watch.

Esoteric subject matters can make it hard for audiences to penetrate through to the actual entertainment; instead of romance, you’ll get statistics, instead of action or comedy you’ll feel guilt. This is why I wanted to make something different.

I realized after directing It’s Not Yet Dark – a documentary following the remarkable director and author Simon Fitzmaurice – that the best way to reach an audience on almost any subject matter, from motor neuron disease to nuclear energy is through the heart. And that’s how we approached this film.

I had to ditch an early approach of interviewing ‘experts’; ageing white men sitting in front of dusty shelves full of old books. Instead, I started to film a diverse array of people from all over the planet, getting out of the shower and eating their breakfast cereal.

I followed them to the airport, getting onto planes and protesting loudly on the streets of foreign lands. In 2013, when completing my first edit of the footage, I originally aimed to complete a visual essay called The Good Reactor, to educate people while also trying to make something cinematic. I then made It’s Not Yet Dark, and a new approach for this film emerged that finally clicked.

We renamed the film Atomic Hope, and the story changed from being about a forgotten energy source, to a broader humanistic tale about the struggle to save the planet.

Filming activist Michael Shellenberg in Munich

Instead of trying to sell information to my audience I want them to follow a human who has given up their job, their career, their relationships for a greater cause… our planet.

The activists who I have chosen to follow could have been any sort of environmentalist, but these ones just happen to be pro-nuclear. The film is about the individuals, the activists themselves, and the struggles on their journey to try and decarbonize the earth and protect the ultimate life support machine, our biosphere.

Sometimes it feels like the world is against you – because sometimes it just is. Most people are anti-nuclear for a myriad of reasons. The originators of the environmental movement, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are staunchly against nuclear. One could argue that it runs deep within our shared psyche ever since the world was introduced to the raw power of the atomic bomb 75 years ago. The protagonists in Atomic Hope have made it their goal to change this perception, but with disasters like Chernobyl, Fukushima and recently Germany’s early closure of their nuclear fleet, surely this battle is already lost? With new evidence and science emerging every year around the subject – perhaps not.

This film attempts to make us think – and possibly might even make us thankful for all the groups of environmentalists out there, whether they be right or wrong, for standing up and fighting for something, no matter what the cost, for something much bigger, and far more important than themselves.

A common question I get asked is “Why would you bother making a film about pro-nuclear people and not anti-nuclear?”. I think we already know why people don’t like nuclear power. There are hundreds, even thousands of documentaries that do that already. In the end, a major point I want to make clear is that this tiny group of people – who, I’d wager, statistically speaking, our audience will most likely not trust and strongly disagree with – from the very get go, are just that.

That’s bananas…

They are people. They are in it for reasons of love.

It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be a young teenager these days. We’ve had no problem pushing inescapable existential dread into their eyes and ears at every opportune moment. From the pressures of social media, melting ice caps and Covid vaccinations to the threat of austerity, AI and World War Three.

No living generation today has had to deal with so much on their plate before they’ve even stepped out into this amazing world.

Atomic Hope goes against this tide and presents a perspective of hope, based in science, and comes from a place of love for our planet and all our futures.

Frankie Fenton’s Atomic Hope screens at The Whale on Thursday, June 8th at 8pm, with the director and 18forO founder Sarah Cullen in attendance. Tickets are €12, available here.