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IGOR: CHILD OF CHERNOBYL (TV)

Summary

This documentary looks at the aftermath of the world's worst nuclear explosion which occurred on April 25, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. While discussing the effects the catastrophe had on society, the documentary focuses on one child named Igor Pavlovets, who is an eight-year-old victim of the disaster. The program reveals the following information about Igor and the Chernobyl accident: Igor was born without a right arm and with stunted legs; his life up to this point has been spent in various institutions throughout the Soviet Union; he lives in London with foster parents and is going through the difficult process of being fitted for artificial limbs; the nuclear cloud resulting from the Chernobyl accident was spread to surrounding countries by the wind and food and water supplies; to this date, there are one million children born with deformities because of the explosion; Igor was one of the first known child casualties of Chernobyl; what it is like for Igor to endure the process of being fitted for prosthetic legs and an arm; seven years after the explosion, only one in every five hundred children has been diagnosed as completely healthy; how fitting Igor's very small body for the limbs proves more difficult than imagined; a number of children are flown into London in order to go on strict nutritional diets to possibly extend their life expectancies; Igor doesn't go to the airport to meet these children because of his fear of returning to Russia; how more complications have arisen with the artificial legs because Igor's toes have grown; and at the age of seven, Igor goes to school for the first time ever and on Christmas day, he calls his foster parent, "Mother," even though she is not, and will never be, his legal mother.

Details

  • NETWORK: N/A
  • DATE: November 30, 1994
  • RUNNING TIME: 0:50:52
  • COLOR/B&W: Color
  • CATALOG ID: T:41459
  • GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
  • SUBJECT HEADING: Abnormalities, Human; Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, Chernobyl', Ukraine, 1986; Nuclear reactors - Accidents; Prosthesis
  • SERIES RUN: N/A
  • COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

  • Ivan Rendall … Executive Producer
  • Mandy Temple … Producer, Director
  • John Pettman … Associate Producer
  • Rachel Goodwin … Researcher
  • Roger Mills … Writer
  • David Snell … Music by
  • Nat Temple … Music by
  • Tim Pigott-Smith … Narrator
  • Irina Parshina
  • Barbara Bennett
  • Victor Mizzi
  • Marion Gittings
  • Rose Powell
  • Jessica Owen
  • Remein Ismail Zade