“STOCKPILE” (2001)

Narrated by Martin Sheen.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the threat of a nuclear war between the USA and Russia has diminished. But the threat posed by nuclear weapons and materials on both sides has increased. As nuclear weapons age, they become unstable and begin to behave in unpredictable ways. This film is the first to go behind the scenes in Arzamas-16 - the Russian nuclear city so secret that it has never appeared on any map - and the American nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to see Russian and American bomb designers working together to reduce the risk. Unprecedented access and the inclusion of archive material granted exclusively to Worldview Pictures make this film a chilling revelation of new dangers facing the world today.

Produced in association with THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL (USA), EO (NETHERLANDS), DRS and TRS (SWITZERLAND).

 

Awards & festivals

·      HOLLYWOOD FILM FESTIVAL, 2001

Shortlist qualification for 2002 Academy Awards, Best Documentary Feature

 

Reviews

An uncommonly potent take on a subject of major global importance, Stephen Trombley's “Stockpile” is a bracingly smart/funny/scary history of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. nuclear arms race, the scientists behind it and its enduring legacy of thousands of stockpiled, past-their-prime nuclear weapons. Chock-full of scientific minutiae, never-before-seen archival footage and  crackling gallows humor, “Stockpile” opens a bold dialogue on nuclear disarmament without adhering to any perceived standards of political correctness. It looks with equal amounts of reverence and terror at mankind's mastery of nuclear fission and fusion. By enormous good fortune, Trombley and his crew obtained permission to shoot inside the famed nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos, N.M., and to interview its past and present employees. But even more stunningly, a pre-Putin Russian government granted  Trombley the same access to Arzamas-16, the secret "nuclear city" that is the Russian equivalent of Los Alamos, and which to this day has never been identified on a Russian map. Narrated by Martin Sheen.

variety (usa)

 

Given that it's narrated by longtime anti-nuclear activist Martin Sheen, Stephen Trombley's "Stockpile" turns out to be a surprisingly objective piece of work, making some valid, rightly frightening points.

new york  post