Uranium
1990 · 47m · Canada
Directed by Magnus Isacsson
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, provocative
This documentary examines uranium mining in Canada, focusing on radioactive waste, environmental danger and the disruption of Indigenous communities whose land and traditional way of life are at stake.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a straight-ahead advocacy doc when it could've been something weirder—the uranium angle begs for formal experimentation, not handwringing earnestness, and Isacsson plays it safe when he should be making us *feel* the isotope decay.
A measured, rigorous investigation that situates itself within the documentary tradition of land-rights cinema and environmental testimony; the 47-minute form allows the argument to unfold with deliberate pacing, letting contamination and displacement accumulate as moral weight rather than melodrama.
The decision to ground this in Indigenous perspective—not as afterthought but as the structural spine—is what separates this from generic mining-industry critique; Isacsson lets the land and the people who know it speak the film's language rather than imposing one.