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RICHLAND (Documentary - 2023 Feature length, Dir. Irene Lusztig)

Built by the US government to house the Hanford nuclear site workers who manufactured weapons-grade plutonium for the Manhattan Project, Richland, Washington is proud of its heritage as a nuclear company town and proud of the atomic bomb it helped create. RICHLAND offers a prismatic, placemaking portrait of a community staking its identity and future on its nuclear origin story, presenting a timely examination of the habits of thought that normalize the extraordinary violence of the past. Moving between archival past and observational present, and across encounters with nuclear workers, community members, archeologists, local tribes, and a Japanese granddaughter of atomic bomb survivors, the film blooms into an expansive and lyrical meditation on home, safety, whiteness, land, and deep time.

TRAILER

Credit: Cinematographer

Screenings:

Tribeca Film Festival 2023 (World Premiere)

Sheffield Doc Festival 2023

DC/DOX 2023

SIFF DocFest 2023

Tri-Cities International Film Festival 2023

SFFilm Doc Stories 2023

New Orleans Film Festival 2023

Denver Film Festival 2023

American Film Festival 2023

IDFA 2023

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival 2024

For more info and updates, check out the RICHLAND website

Description of Helki’s cinematography in ‘Richland’ Review: A Sobering View of a Town Taken Advantage Of :

“Despite the murder of land in the Richland area, it’s a beautiful town with so much to offer visually, which cinematographer Helki Frantzen captures with a gorgeous and eerie precision. The focus is on the land itself, showcasing its broad and beautiful fields that sit atop nuclear matter in the soil below. The town’s particular personality is also nicely encapsulated through crisp images of its community centers, the places that the locals thrive in—and to that end, the locals themselves.

Frantzen shoots these people with such reverence and respect, giving them all of her lens generously as a plane through which to connect with the audience and make them understand why they might, deep down, resent what Richland has made them. The land and the people are equal in her eyes and because of this, their stories feel more intertwined than they already are.” - The Wrap