Journey Inside Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone | Short Film Showcase

When we first walked into that room, the first thing that we picked up was the sound of dripping water. You can see it first dripping from the ceiling; large puddles accumulated on the floor. There's a sense of fear that comes from that because they tell you that if there's anything, you should stay away from: do not touch the water. There is nothing that is more irritated than the water itself.

What was some going through my mind is, how did this mask get to those rooms? It was really shocking just to see so many of them because we walked into the room and we didn't know what to expect. And you kind of, you know, he turned around and see all of these masks, and it was terrifying.

I think that you'd expect when you create footage like this that you want people to feel somewhat depressed or you want people to feel like there's a place that time forgot. Or you even want them to feel sorrow for the people in a subject matter that happened in general, and that's not what I'm aiming for. I'm actually aiming for the opposite.

So I want them to find the beauty in the apocalypse. I want them to find the beauty in the dilapidated and the derelict. I thought the place would feel really sad to me; it would feel really eerie. I didn't want to have expectations; I just wanted to see for myself and have the feelings once I got to the place.

And once I got there, yes, it's scary, it's a little eerie, but at the same time, it was very peaceful. It was very nature starting to take back the buildings, and I didn't feel that I needed to be sad. Think bad things have happened, but if anything, it just seemed very quiet and very peaceful, and just, yeah, nature taken everything back.