BERLIN / Yves Degryse, Bart Baele & Cathy Blisson

Chernobyl, April 26, 1986. The explosion of a reactor drastically changed the lives of the people in and around the city of Pripyat. Almost everyone was evacuated and never returned. Everyone except Pétro and Nadia. With "Zvizdal," the Antwerp theater group BERLIN paints a warm, deeply human portrait of a stubborn couple who refused to leave their home after the nuclear disaster.

Nearly forty years later, Pétro and Nadia still live in their old village, a ghost town. For five years, BERLIN regularly traveled to Chernobyl to interview them and gain insight into their lives and choices. How do they endure a life of isolation for years on end? We see Pétro and Nadia, now well into their 80s, enduring in a contaminated zone and chosen solitude. No running water, electricity, phone, or mail. Instead, they rely on superstition, vodka, swearing, singing, and the ailments of old age.

"Zvizdal" is the sixth installment in the "Holocene" series, in which BERLIN tries to capture our era. Film, poetry, and documentary blend with theater and fiction. The result is a universal story about loneliness, survival, poverty, hope, and love.