The Idealist

Christina Rosendahl

Captivating political thriller about one of the best kept secrets in Danish history. In 1968, a B-52 bomber crashes on the ice of Thule, in Greenland. The plane carried four hydrogen bombs, spreading their nuclear material across the area. Almost twenty years later, a reporter starts an investigation to discover how two governments were involved in a large-scale conspiracy to conceal the nature of the accident.

On 21 January 1968, during the Cold War, an American B-52 bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed on the ice of Thule in Greenland, not far from the US Air Base. The Danish and American authorities go public on the crash a few days later, downplaying any radiation risk. Hundreds of Danish workers are deployed as part of a big cleaning operation to remove the plane debris and any nuclear material. After all traces of the plane and the plutonium-contaminated snow have been wiped out, the case is closed.

Eighteen years later, one of the clean-up workers contacts young journalist Poul Brink, as he suffers from a mysterious skin disease which he thinks may have been caused by cleaning up the nuclear material. Brink’s initial skepticism disappears when more people turn up suffering from similar conditions, and he starts an investigation. With the truth behind the accident buried beneath a thick layer of ice in the Bay of Thule, the authorities make every effort to hush up the affair. But Brink is determined to continue his enquiries until justice is done.

Main protagonist Peter Plaugborg also plays the role of Niels in the Danish movie In Your Arms, which will be screened during the festival.

Credits

Director
Christina Rosendahl
Producer
Jonas Frederiksen, Signe Leick Jensen
Year
2015
Country of production
Denmark
Type
Fiction
Duration
114 minutes
Spoken language
Danish, English, Greenlandic, Spanish
Subtitles
EN
Production company
Toolbox Film
World Sales
LevelK