Into Eternity: A Film for the Future

Michael Madsen

An epic thriller about the world's first attempt to store nuclear toxin into eternity.
With the nuclear era less than 70 years old, an estimated 300,000 tons of deadly radioactive waste already exist in the world today. Current above-ground storage facilities subject to natural and man-made disasters are only temporary solutions to a totally unprecedented problem. Deep below the earth, the people of Finland are constructing an enormous tomb as the final resting place for their share of the waste. Dubbed "Onkalo" (Finnish for "hiding place"), the three-mile tunnel should be sealed by the year 2100 and must remain untouched for at least 100,000 years. One hundred thousand years. In this poetic, hauntingly beautiful documentary, filmmaker Michael Madsen talks with the world's top nuclear energy experts and descends into the murky tunnel with the men who blast the rock, but his treatment of this mind-bending and terrifying subject is more philosophical than academic: How far into the future does our way of life have consequences? How can we warn civilizations of the distant future that the buried treasure of our nuclear era unlike the pyramids and great tombs of pharaohs must never, ever be discovered?

Credits

Director
Michael Madsen
Year
2010
Country of production
Denmark, Finland, Sweden
Type
Documentary
Duration
75 minutes
Spoken language
English
Subtitles
EN
Production company
Magic Hour Films
World Sales
AUTLOOK Filmsales
Dutch distributor
Cinema Delicatessen