MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
13 February 2013
A precarious existence.
A review of Precarious screening at BBFF2013: 1 – 10 March 2013
Trailer: http://youtu.be/dCgAr08pIGA
The 7th Byron Bay International Film Festival (BBFF2013) presented by The Owners Club at
Linnaeus is once again bringing thought-leading people and films from around the globe
together for a captivating, stimulating and entertaining dose of screen culture from
1-10 March 2013. This includes intriguing wintry documentary, Precarious.
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On 26 April 1986, Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded,
catalysing what is widely considered to be the worst nuclear power plant accident in
history. It sent huge quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread
over much of Western USSR and Europe and required an estimated half a million people to
battle the contamination and avert an even greater catastrophe. Although that was
almost 30 years ago, its legacy quite literally remains buried under the snow along with the
radiation dust that has caused so many deaths and deformities. That’s where residents
hope it will stay until proper clean ups finally occur.
In 2009, Sydney-based artist Merilyn Fairskye found herself on an unexpected stay in Kiev
and arranged a trip to Chernobyl to get a single video shot of Reactor No.4 for an art
installation. It was in the middle of a heavy winter. She drove into Chernobyl past houses still
contaminated by radiation, and further along, more toxic houses buried under a thick layer
of clay. The power plant structures sat in a vast white lake - the iced-over cooling channels
and cooling pond, terminally damaged, incomplete or obsolete. Then later, alone in the
middle of the abandoned city of Pripyat, surrounded by thick snow and heavy silence, it
felt like after the end of the world. That’s when this intriguing documentary film, Precarious,
started to take shape.
Fairskye returned a year later and found it harder to ignore the organic, volatile 200-ton
lump of congealed, toxic core material still lying in the basement of Reactor No.4, or the
under- resourced remediation and containment work being planned, postponed or
undertaken. She talked to people who had lived with the aftermath of the explosion. The
grey, bleak, winter landscapes were paradoxically, reassuring, and became the visual
motif of this film. That’s because in Chernobyl, a heavy winter is good protection against
radiation, because radioactive dust is trapped under the ice and snow. But there is always
the danger that in spring, flooding will occur, and once again contaminated water will run
from the Pripyat River to the Black Sea, a thousand kilometres to the south.
As well as footage shot in Crimea, Kiev and Chernobyl that create a sense that these
places are the true characters of the film, Fairskye uses the contemporary voices and
stories of a range of people who have experienced Chernobyl at first hand. These include
a doctor, a scientist, a teacher, a former liquidator, and a present day worker at
Chernobyl. Their testimony evokes lived experience rather than history that portray the
extreme uncertainty and doubt surrounding Chernobyl today. Without a direct narrative to
grasp, a flow of fragments accumulates to build a sense of the utter precariousness of it all.
Precarious is not a predictably linear, historically accurate series of facts. Fairskye suggests it
might better be described as a ‘road movie’, instead concerning itself with ordinary
people’s capacity to endure in the face of technological failure and state secrecy on a
grand scale, and the fragility of nature. Poetically, Fairskye summarises it by saying, “to
mistranslate Dziga Vertov’s comment on his 1929 silent film, Man with a Movie Camera,
‘This film is an experiment of real events with the help of a never-ending story…”.
Precarious makes its Australian festival debut at BBFF2013 amongst a stellar list of
documentaries from around the globe.
For the festival program, trailers and ticketing information please visit www.bbff.com.au or
find the festival on Facebook.
MEET THE FILMMAKER
MERILYN FAIRSKYE
Merilyn Fairskye is a Sydney-based artist who makes videos and photographs, taking time
out between to teach Media Arts studios at Sydney College of the Arts, University of
Sydney. She’s an artist of intellect and conviction. Especially when it comes to nuclear
power, which she describes as “an inherently centralised technology that requires
centralised political-industrial-institutions”. She goes on to explain, “The key nuclear industry
body, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has 137 member states. Uranium mining
and nuclear power plants are big business. When things go wrong, the outcomes are
enormous. Who can say there is a safe, secure long-term solution to the problem of nuclear
waste disposal?” Though she explains that her film, Precarious, is not a vehicle for
conveying these convictions; instead, it reflects on what remains unresolved and unfinished
about Chernobyl - and on the capacity of people to endure the social, economic and
environmental consequences of mega technologies. It is an aesthetic, imagined construct
driven by the powerful events of real life.
Fairskye’s videos have screened in festivals including Al Jazeera International Documentary
Film Festival; International Film Festival Rotterdam; Videobrasil; Oberhausen; IFDA,
Amsterdam; Sydney Film Festival and art museums including Tate Modern London; Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Songzhuang Art Museum,
China & National Palace Museum, Taipei.
- ENDS -
For further media information or images, please contact:
Amanda Blennerhassett
Media & PR Manager
0449 153 885
media@bbff.com.au
Notes to editors:
About the Byron Bay International Film Festival
The 7th Byron Bay International Film Festival (BBFF2013) is an independent celebration of
the world’s best cutting-edge films that symbolise diversity, inclusion, authenticity and
evolution. Entertaining, inspiring and thought provoking, BBFF showcases and supports the
unique cultural melting pot that is Byron Bay and its avid film community, which is home to
the greatest concentration of film makers in Australia outside metropolitan areas.
About Festival Director, J’aimee Skippon-Volke
Born in Australia, J’aimee Skippon-Volke has a truly international perspective, spending
much of her upbringing travelling the globe. Her father worked in television and moved the
family from Australia to New Zealand and then to Thatcherite Britain, where the curtains
opened on J’aimee’s love of underground cinema. As a teen growing up in Covent
Garden in central London, she discovered the cinematic offerings at the ICA (Institute of
Contemporary Arts) a hub of raw talent for contemporary arthouse film. Her appetite for
film was fuelled further by the infamous Scala Cinema in Kings Cross and their all-night
movie marathons of cult classics.
J’aimee went on to work with Producers and Executive Producers in the TV industry and
after a stint in the USA, she settled in Byron Bay, Australia, to raise her family where she
became actively involved in the community. Starting out behind the scenes of BBFF, she
stepped up to the role of Festival Director and expanded it to international status to match
Byron Bay’s international community in 2007. With early adoption of social media, she has
led BBFF from strength to strength. Community values remain close to J’aimee’s heart and
she also works on the board of Screenworks, an organisation fostering a vibrant innovative
screen industry in the NSW Northern Rivers region, the Byron Visitors Centre and she is
currently President of the Byron Bay Community Centre.
About the Byron Bay location
With world class beaches only a short stroll from festival venues, and World Heritage
rainforests and national parks a short drive away, Byron Bay provides a glorious backdrop
for BBFF2013. A history of open-mindedness and creativity has firmly placed Byron Bay on
the world map as a destination for people seeking a positive change in lifestyle or
perspective. A progressive place where new technologies and practices are embraced,
and green awareness and eco living are promoted, Byron is a place where quality of life
sits high on the community’s list of priorities.
About The Owners Club at Linnaeus
This private beachfront estate with 300 acres of rainforest, coastal dunes and bushland is
bounded by state reserves and a marine national park, fronts a 1.5 kilometre strip of Seven
Mile Beach, and is a stone’s throw from Byron Bay. Shared between no more than 72
owners for their exclusive use throughout the year, the luxury property includes a 25m
infinity pool, tennis court, gymnasium, organic market garden and a clubhouse that houses
a commercial kitchen, dining rooms, library, wine cellar and intimate performance spaces.
For more information visit www.theownersclub.com.au