Chernobyl 1986: New Netflix Film About Infamous Nuclear Incident Drops

Netflix's brand new Chernobyl movie has just dropped, telling a love story in the midst of the infamous nuclear disaster.

The film Chernobyl 1986, stars actor Danila Kozlovsky as firefighter Aleksey Karpushin, who puts his life in danger to tackle the blaze at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Pripyat.

"After reuniting with a lost love, firefighter Alexey retires to begin a new life - but the Chernobyl disaster suddenly plunges him back to danger," a Netflix synopsis reads.

The film also stars Oksana Akinshina as Aleksey's former flame, Olga - who turns out to have welcomed his child 10 years prior.

Created by Russian filmmaker Danila Kozlovsky, and penned by Ivanova and Aleksey Kazakov, the film was reportedly inspired by HBO's BAFTA and Emmy winning 2019 miniseries, Chernobyl.

The main difference is that the original series - which stars Emily Watson, Jessie Buckley, Stellan Skarsgard - centres a lot more around scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) orchestrating the clean up in the aftermath. It also focuses on real life events and only dramatising them in order to illustrate the magnitude of the tragedy.

Meanwhile, this movie is more about the characters at the centre of the drama, with Chernobyl as a backdrop - a decision which has received a mixed reaction so far, in reviews.

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For those who don't know much about the disaster, it was essentially a catastrophic nuclear accident which took place on 25th and 26th April 1986.

It happened in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the now-abandoned town of Pripyat, in northern Ukraine. A steam explosion caused a cloud of radioactive smoke and dust to be carried on the wind around Europe, and Pripyat residents were evacuated from the town.

The explosion proved fatal for many of the brave service-people that stepped in its path, whether it was those stabilising the reactor, cleaning up the ejected nuclear core or putting out the fire that it left in its wake.



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In total, 134 station staff and firemen were hospitalised in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, after suffering from acute radiation syndrome after absorbing large amounts of ionizing radiation.

Tragically, 28 died and 14 had suspected radiation-induced cancer deaths followed within the next 10 years.

Topics: TV And Film, Chernobyl

Joanna Freedman

Joanna has worked at Tyla for the last two years, and has a particular interest in highlighting women's issues and telling inspiring first person stories. She's also their resident foodie, and loves covering exciting new beauty launches. Contact her at [email protected].

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