CHERNOBYL JOURNEY, A WORK IN PROGRESS

At the Green Man, 36 Riding House Street, London W1W 7EP

on Monday 27th April 2026

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster (26 April, 1986) Sally Pearce presents her project Chernobyl Journey, a mixed-media autobiographical documentary. 50% animated and using a variety of techniques (including paint on glass), the film recalls Sally’s four trips to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone between 2009 and 2015 –  journeys undertaken in search of rare Przewalski Horses that become a journey into her own past. 

About the film

Chernobyl Journey is a work in progress, being shown as an unfinished piece at London Animation Club, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster. On 26th April 1986, Reactor Number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in NE Ukraine exploded. A meltdown followed that lasted many days before the blaze was bought under control. Smoke containing radioactive ash was blown all around Europe by prevailing winds. By 2nd May 1986 the city of Pripyat and all the towns and villages within a 30K distance from the power plant had been evacuated. This was designated the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, an area which remains uninhabitable due to high levels of radioactive contamination. In the late 1990s a small herd of extremely rare Przewalski Horses were released into the Ukrainian part of the CEZ.

Chernobyl Journey is a mixed-media feature-length autobiographical documentary. In the film live action is used to tell the story of my four trips to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone between 2009 and 2015. These trips were made in search of the Przewalski Horses, in the company of scientists and my Ukrainian guide, with the intention of making a documentary about the horses. However, in the film, animation is used to tell a counter story, a psychological story that goes backwards in time to 1986 as it explores hidden reasons that I did not understand for my personal fascination for the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Chernobyl Journey is 50% animated. A variety of techniques are used but the main method is paint-on-glass which is blended with or composited into live action backgrounds. For remembered landscapes the paint on glass is combined with watercolour backgrounds. In the version of the film shown at London Animation Club on 27th April 2026, two thirds of the animation shots are finished, but a third of the animation is still represented by animatics. The edit is advanced but cannot progress to a fine cut until the animation is all completed. The soundtrack, including original music by Kylie Earl, remains a work in progress.

About the director

SALLY PEARCE completed a Studentship supported PhD by Practice in the Animation Department at Wolverhampton University in November 2024. Prior to this, she graduated from the NFTS UK in 2009 with an Animation Direction MA. She additionally has two BA(Hons) degrees. After leaving Cambridge University with a BA (Hons) Philosophy in 1983, she trained as a nurse at Wrexham Maelor Hospital and worked as a Staff Nurse in the NHS and private sectors in North Wales. She started making films whilst taking a part-time Fine Art Course at Sheffield Hallam University, 1998-2004. Her NFTS graduation film, Elephants (2008), a children’s fiction mixing live action with paint-on-glass animation and 2D digital compositing, screened at over 100 Festivals including for instance, Annecy, Shanghai, Uppsala, Chicago, St Louis, Tehran, London, winning many awards and distinctions. Sally’s work with live action, mixed media and animation since leaving the NFTS includes short mixed-media UK Film Council and Welsh Arts Council funded film Hally which won second place in Academy Award qualifying competition at Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, October 2011. Sally has been making long form mixed media project Chernobyl Journey since 2009, making four trips to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone between 2009 and 2015, spending a total of 15 filming days in the Zone, in collaboration with scientists from America and Ukraine. In 2022, Sally was invited to talk about her work in the ‘Best Practice’ section of Tricky Women/Tricky Realities Festival, Vienna, for which she made the video essay Shades of Invisibility (2022) Her recent short piece Pripyat Horse (2023) 2m: has been selected at International Film Festivals, for instance, Mill Valley Film Festival, California, Oct, 2023; the Wild and Scenic Film Festival, Nevada City, California, Feb, 2024; Brighton Animation Festival, April, 2024 (nominated for the Best British Animation award), The International Wildlife Film Festival, Montana, April 2024 and The Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation and Technology, August 2024, (nominated in the Micro-documentary category), and many other Festivals.