‘The smart contextualising and minute-by-minute storytelling feel fresh and chilling.’

THE TIMES

A three-part documentary series examining the events, human cost and lasting global impact of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The series combined eyewitness testimony, archive material, expert analysis and dramatic reconstruction to explore how a catastrophic reactor failure escalated into one of the most significant disasters in modern history. Working across multiple episodes simultaneously, I oversaw the editorial and visual approach for the series while directing interviews and reconstruction filming designed to bring the story to life with cinematic scale and emotional immediacy.

A major focus of the production was balancing the scientific and political complexity of the disaster with the personal experiences of those who lived through it — from plant workers and emergency responders to families affected by the fallout across the Soviet Union and beyond.

The series drew on extensive archive research and carefully constructed timelines to examine not only the explosion itself, but the culture of secrecy, misinformation and institutional failure that allowed the crisis to spiral out of control.

Alongside large-scale reconstruction sequences, the production used atmospheric visual storytelling and contributor testimony to create an immersive account of a disaster whose consequences are still being felt decades later.