Mediaboss Marketing

PARK CITY, UTAH As the political temperature of East-West relations continues to drop, two new documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival shine a klieg light on the old Cold War, revealing information that isnt only surprising, but altogether ominous.

The first is the incendiary Russian Woodpecker, a film that opens with mass protests in Ukraine and ends with the strong suggestion the Kremlin blew the Chernobyl reactor to cover-up a botched weapon. The second is Chuck Norris vs. Communism, a much lighter look at how pirated Hollywood movies influenced an entire generation of Romanians and set the stage for rebellion against former leader Nicolae Ceausescu.

Both competing in the World Cinema Documentary program, they prove how little we in the West still understand about the former evil empire despite a quarter century of Glasnost and the sight of Muscovites in Levis.

On the surface, you know, Russians look similar to Americans in their jeans but the longer you stay the more you realize that they are very, very different people, says Chad Gracia, the director behind The Russian Woodpecker.

An American theatre director who was working in Kiev on an adaptation of Anna Karenina in 2013, Gracia says hes never been a conspiracy theorist, or for that matter anti-Russian, but when his Ukrainian production designer, Fedor Alexandrovich, approached him about a Russian Woodpecker he was intrigued.

Gracia thought Alexandrovich wanted to take him to a zoo or an aviary, but when he turned to the Internet and researched what his creative collaborator was trying to tell him, he realized it wasnt a bird, but a mega-antenna that showered North America with low-wave frequencies from July 4, 1976 to 1989.

The signals made a constant tapping noise that befuddled American intelligence, causing the CIA and others to dub it the Russian Woodpecker.

The purpose of the antenna was never clear. Some thought it was designed to control weather. Others believed it was a form of mind-control.

Either way, Gracia was curious enough to take a field trip to where civilian radio operators had tracked the signal: In the very shadow of the Chernobyl reactor, where radiation levels are still 10 times normal.

There was a lot of mystery to it, so I said to Fedor: Lets make a five minute piece. Ive never made a movie before. Ill get a camera, it will be a fun little project and well put it on YouTube.

More:
Sundance: Russian Woodpecker, Chuck Norris vs. Communism debut