Fallout Dogs (2019) is a cinematic portrait of Chernobyl guided by the movements and activities of the stray dogs that live in the exclusion zone and the people who take care of them.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster began on April 26, 1986, with an explosion in Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Power Plant. Over 100,000 residents were evacuated on buses and told to leave everything behind. During the ensuing clean up effort, many of the abandoned pets were shot to prevent contamination. Some survived by making their way to the power plant, where workers and self settlers have been caring for them and their descendants ever since.

This video work is about resilience, and while it unfolds from the perspective of dogs, it tells the story of a human catastrophe and the mishandling of its fallout. What we decide we can leave behind is an indicator of our humanity or lack thereof; those who chose to intervene and place themselves in harm’s way are the protagonists. Fallout Dogs gives us the opportunity to meet some of them.

Fallout Dogs was supported in part by an Oregon Media Arts Fellowship funded by the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Community Foundation in partnership with the Northwest Film Center. It has been presented at the Northwest Film Center at the Portland Museum of Art, the Pataphysical Society in Portland, OR; Spaces in Cleveland, OH; Boathouse Microcinema in Portland, OR; Ecofutures Festival in London, UK; SheTown Film Festival in Detroit, MI; and NHDocs: The New Haven Documentary Film Festival in New Haven, CT. It was the awarded the Golden Slice Best Short Film award at NHDocs; and the Athens International Film Festival.