The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of “Richland” showing Jan. 26-31 at the Mary D. Fisher and Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatres.
Director Irene Lusztig will be in Sedona to host the first two screenings (Friday and Saturday) and conduct a live Q&A discussion after the shows.
Built by the US government to house the Hanford nuclear site workers who manufactured weapons-grade plutonium for the Manhattan Project, Richland, Washington is proud of its heritage as a nuclear company town and proud of the atomic bomb it helped create.
“Richland” offers a prismatic, placemaking portrait of a community staking its identity and future on its nuclear origin story, presenting a timely examination of the habits of thought that normalize the extraordinary violence of the past.
Moving between archival past and observational present, and across encounters with nuclear workers, community members, archeologists, local tribes, and a Japanese granddaughter of atomic bomb survivors, the film blooms into an expansive and lyrical meditation on home, safety, whiteness, land, and deep time.
"With curiosity and care, ‘Richland’ peers into the heart of a small town, acknowledges the joys, and brings the pain and loss and broken promises into the light." — The Hollywood Reporter