The innovative photographer-turned-director Seiichi Motohashi returns to the contaminated region around Chernobyl, site of his acclaimed film Nadya's Village, to create this “exceptionally sensitive portrait of a community that survives in defiance of disaster” (Toronto Film Festival). Almost everyone has fled the village of Budische, located within Chernobyl's fallout zone; only fifty-three elderly people remain, along with one young man, Alexei. Miraculously, the town's spring seems to have escaped contamination; it gives forth water with no signs of radiation. Motohashi records the village's events with an unobtrusive eye, the residents speaking into the camera with little self-consciousness and much humor. Moving from the snows of winter to the sun of spring, he captures a life that overcomes man-made disaster through faith in nature. As he notes, “Life emanates from the spring, and is regenerated by it. In this village, one truly feels that people and living things are all part of the great cycle of Nature.” A haunting score by legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto completes the effect.