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Part observational essay filmed in weapons plants, Fukushima and deep underground—and part graphic novel—Containment weaves between an uneasy present and an imaginative, troubled far future, exploring the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.
The disposal of nuclear waste does not make it to global news very often. But it ought to, and urgently. Surviving in the shadow of Fukushima and the devastation that has left behind, are we adequately future-proofing ourselves? With a lifespan of 10,000 years, spent plutonium for nuclear power stations across the United States has been sealed in tanks and buried underground in the deserts of New Mexico. Yet there are serious concerns about how they will remain there through every eventuality, and for the entire duration.
Pendulating between the speculative forecasting of the American “far future” consultation group and the eerily quiet visits to the abandoned towns around Fukushima, filmmakers Robb Moss and Peter Gallison (Secrecy, 2008) examine the potential ramifications of our current polices on nuclear management: how do we safeguard a human race that is as far away into the future as human civilisation has been around?