REGISSEUR Alex Gerbaulet & Mareike Bernien
DREHBUCH/LEITUNG/MONTAGE/SOUND DESIGN Mareike Bernien & Alex Gerbaulet
KREATIVE PRODUZENTIN Caroline Kirberg
KINEMATOGRAPHIE Jenny Lou Ziegel
TON Tom Schön
KONTAKT gerbaulet(at)pong-berlin.de
www.sonne-unter-tage.pong-berlin.de/de
From 1946 to 1990, Wismut AG mined uranium for use in the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. Layer by layer, the film reveals memories surrounding the radioactive element and the sites where it was excavated.
Uranium has a half life of 4.46 billion years. If it decays, it emits alpha, beta and gamma particles. The German Democratic Republic may be consigned to history, but the decisions made under it continue to radiate into the present: “How long does it take for a memory to decay?”
In Saxony and Thuringia, Wismut AG mined uranium for the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program from 1949 to 1990. With each new shaft, socialism moved forward into the Atomic Age. Now, though, the former mining sites are redevelopment areas. SUN UNDER GROUND reveals memories surrounding the radioactive element and the sites where it was excavated.
MAREIKE BERNIEN lives in Berlin and works as an artist, filmmaker and teacher of film research and critical archive practices. Taking an approach based on media archeology, her artistic works question the ideological certainties of representations, their technological and material conditions and historical continuities.
ALEX GERBAULET lives and works as an artist, filmmaker and producer in Berlin. The focus of her artistic works is on visualizing and shaping reality and memory. Her films straddle the line between video art, essay and documentary and are part activist call to action, part fictionalized reflection.
