82 minutes, color, 1982

A personal film about a political issue, Dark Circle follows the invisible trail of plutonium, profiling ordinary citizens affected by the nuclear industry and revealing the inextricable links between nuclear weapons and power. Shot at the Rocky Flats plutonium factory, infamous for contaminating the area near Denver Colorado, and at California's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, built on active earthquake faults, the film also includes the first documentary portraits of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb survivors shot by Americans. These stories, notably absent from Oppenheimer, provide crucial information still so painful it is rarely faced. Denounced by officials and shunned by broadcasters when the film was first released, Dark Circle raises issues that have become today's front-page headlines.

Academy shortlisted for Best Documentary and a National Emmy winner, Dark Circle is no less potent today than it was 40 years ago. Newly restored and re-mastered by the Academy Film Archive and Pelican Media.

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"★★★★! Dark Circle is one of the most horrifying films I've seen, and also sometimes one of the funniest (if you can laugh at the same things in real life that you found amusing in Dr. Strangelove). Using powers granted by the Freedom of Information Act, and sleuthing that turned up government film the government didn't even know it had, the producers of this film have created a mosaic of the Atomic Age. It is a tribute to the power of the material, and to the relentless digging of the filmmakers, that the movie is completely riveting." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"You owe it to yourself to see this chilling documentary. A much needed warning sign on a very dangerous road. Rated: A."- People Magazine

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