“A powerful testament to resilience and the human instinct to survive by any means necessary.”

Just south of the Irtysh River lies the Abai Region, a desolate part of the Kazakh steppes. It’s a stunning sight, but one that quickly gains meaning once we learn that it is here that we will find the Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS), where the Soviet Union conducted nearly 500 nuclear tests from the late 1940s until Kazakhstan declared independence after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. One of the first images we see is of two scientists, clad in white protective gear, making their way through the arid landscape, which may seem idyllic at a glance. In reality it is extremely dangerous, with the radioactive materials binding with the natural environment, making it nearly impossible for any life to survive in this expansive area. Zhanana Kurmasheva (whose own mother was raised in a nearby village during this period) makes her directorial debut with We Live Here, in which she explores the STS through interviewing various people who have felt the impact of these events. This ranges from survivors who were present to witness the atrocious acts, to the younger generations who have been raised in the shadow of nuclear warfare and are still experiencing the effects of these activities that were conducted without any regard for human life. A shocking and provocative documentary that provides insight into the experiences of the victims, We Live Here is a powerful testament to resilience and the human instinct to survive by any means necessary.

Towards the end, just as We Live Here is reaching its climactic moments, the off-screen voice of one of the primary subjects says, “where there’s life, there’s hope”. It’s a simple statement rendered far more profound by the surrounding imagery, depicting the people from this region quietly ruminating on their experiences, as well as the road ahead. At its core this is a film about hope – it may have been decades since the last tests were conducted in this area, but the aftershocks still linger, both literally and metaphorically – and all that keeps these people alive is the hope that change will come about eventually. Kurmasheva is not delusional enough to suggest that the physical and psychological impact of these actions can be reversed or remedied, but rather that effective change sometimes means preventing the same mistakes from happening in the future. It’s not necessarily her belief as much it is her hope and prayer that these brutal acts will never be repeated or replicated. The reality is that we witness destruction at an even higher scale to this day, which means that this documentary can do nothing other than remind us of a harsh truth, which we then have to correlate to modern geopolitical maneuvering and the tendency of far too many powerful individuals to assert their strength through intimidation, regardless of the destruction of nature and human life. To find hope through all of this is beyond admirable, and the director chooses to highlight the people who live in these conditions, as well as being burdened with the knowledge of a brutal, destructive history.

There were many different avenues down which Kurmasheva could have travelled with this narrative – stories about the impact of nuclear warfare have been sensations in terms of both fiction and non-fiction retellings, ranging from speculative tales to very sobering historical accounts. Yet her approach was perhaps the most effective, keeping everything simple and direct, and refusing to embellish for the sake of artistic freedom or to convey a message that went beyond the core points of discussion. It is not a particularly loud film, but it remains vocal in the areas that matter, using long stretches of silence to observe the region and its residents, as the emotions painted across their faces are more than enough to make the impact of these events quite clear. The film also delivers its facts directly and without any fanfare – interviews with subjects and experts throughout provide the context – and the film ends with a postscript consisting of over half a dozen facts about the STS, both its original use and its aftermath, including the size of the affected region, the number of victims and the thousands of years it will take for the radioactive material to decay. Each new piece of information is more devastating than the last, outlining a harrowing reality that cannot be reversed, but hopefully prevented in the future.

By the end of this film, the stories are reduced to mere statistics in a report that is filed away in a locked cupboard, becoming just another set of facts and figures that indicate observation rather than active resolution. The photographs and testimonials are placed carefully into folders and scrapbooks to be brought out the next time this subject emerges and there are efforts to bring about some change, even though it seems futile. This is not the fault of the people fighting for this cause, whether it’s those who are directly affected or the legal and political professionals who represent them. There is a bleakness to this film, and the director emphasizes the fact that change is not likely to be made in our lifetime – the damage has been done and will outlive us all, and many generations to come. Yet this doesn’t mean that the story isn’t worth telling – if nothing else, We Live Here acts as an effort to document the survivors, as well as paying tribute to victims who lost their lives over the decades. Over thirty years since the site was abandoned by the military, this region of the country is still haunted by the specter of the past, subjected to interminable physical and psychological torture by distant, faceless figures that were aware of the dangers of these acts but disregarded any safety concerns, indicating their wholehearted belief in the expendable nature of human lives. Harrowing, disturbing and deeply unsettling, but vital in terms of both its scope and the underlying meaning, We Live Here is a powerful, essential film that explores one of the countless chapters in 21^st-century history that should never be forgotten, both in memory of the survivors and to hopefully prevent such atrocities from ever being committed again.