Butterfly City

Butterfly City
Director
Olga Černovaitė
Country
Ireland (Eire)
Year
In production
Genre
Documentary
Scriptwriters
Olga Černovaitė
Production
PLANET KORDA PICTURES. Co-production: Ketvirta Versija AND CFC Short & Doc
http://planetkorda.com/wordpress/projects/butterflycity/

Storyline

The city of Visaginas was created from nothing in the 1970s in order to service a powerful Soviet nuclear power station. Literally designed and shaped like the wings of a butterfly, it was intended to be a window of Soviet progress to the West. After USSR disintegration, however, EU membership meant Lithuania has to close the plant, the city’s only industry. What future for the 25,000 Russian-speaking townspeople, brought up in a country that no longer exists, citizens of a country that doesn’t want them, dependent on a single industry condemned to obsolescence?

Refusing to take sides on particular grievances in this sensitive situation, the film is simply another way of asking a rather universal question: if there is a way for different communities living as citizens in the same democratic country to maintain their identity, respect that of others, and live together without fear or suspicion.