Cuban documentary on Chernobyl highly acclaimed in Spain

Strong emotions, standing ovations and expressions of admiration for Cuba were aroused on Sunday during the screening in Spain of the documentary 'Sacha, un niño de Chernobyl' (Sacha, a Child from Chernobyl).

In the presence of its directors, Maribel Acosta Damas and Roberto Chile, Ateneo de Madrid hosted the premiere of the 39-minute-long documentary.

A PhD in communication sciences, professor and journalist with long experience, Acosta Damas explained that the idea for the documentary resulted from her meeting in 2015 with Peruvian artist Sonia Cunliffe, who decided to take the subject to an exhibition in Lima a year later.

It was a sort of inspiration that made me research about the 26,000 children from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus who received free treatment medical in Cuba after the nuclear accident in Chernobyl, she explained.

The starting point of the documentary is the story of Olexandr Savchenko 'Sacha', who arrived in Cuba when he was one year old with his mother, Lida, after the explosion of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, on April 26, 1986.

Sacha, who lived in Chernigov, a Ukrainian village near the area of the accident, fell ill and in the absence of accurate diagnoses in his country, his mother decided to take him to Tarara, a children's camp on a seaside resort, east of Havana.

A happing-ending story, like those about the vast majority of children who received treatment in Cuba for 21 years. The best proof is the eternal gratitude of Ukrainians, as Acosta Damas saw when she went to film in that nation.