This film tells two forever intertwined stories, that of Bernard Ista and that of the French atomic bomb. Their first meeting took place in the Algerian desert in 1960, during the first experiments with the A bomb. Their farewells took place in 1995, in the atoll of Mururoa, during the last firings of the H bomb. 35 years of an adventure exhilarating and tragic common. In 1998, Bernard Ista died from cancer.
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It all started in 1960, Bernard Ista was an engineer and dreamed of traveling around the world... He joined the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). From 1960 to 1995 and with the authorization of his superiors, Bernard Ista filmed on all the shooting ranges and for all the tests. He films and writes the daily chronicle of these 35 years, the overview of the shooting range as well as the games and parties with friends, the atmospheric tests such as family swimming in the lagoon, his youthful enthusiasms as well as his doubts as a mature man. .
He died, so did his friends… Where were they contaminated? In the Sahara? In Polynesia? In the lab in Paris?
The images and notebooks of Bernard Ista show and tell the reverse view of this adventure which was the construction of the French atomic bomb and the acquisition of an independent defense policy. Far from the militant indictment, his daily story animates from the inside the 35 years that lasted the face to face of the soldiers and civilians with the bomb. It humanizes and thus completes the official history as it is written in the films of the Army cinema service.
After 50 years of “defense secrecy”, the State adopted in January 2010 a law recognizing and compensating the victims of French nuclear tests. “Victims of the French Atomic Bomb”, produced from unpublished images and the notebooks of Bernard Ista, is a posthumous tribute to the veterans and civilian victims, Algerian and Polynesian, of French nuclear tests.
In total, 150,000 people, enlisted, conscripts, career soldiers or civilians from the CEA participated in the 210 French nuclear tests. Many people today suffer from serious illnesses or have died.
“The French Atomic Bomb”
Director: Jean-Philippe Desbordes and Christine Bonnet
© MANO A MANO - ARCHIPEL PRODUCTION - 2012
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