Maryann DeLeo wins Oscar for Belarus, Ukraine & Ireland :: Charter'97 :: News

Chernobyl Heart [Chornobylske Sertse], a documentary film featuring the effects of Chornobyl`s radioactive fallout in Ukraine and Belarus, won an Oscar Academy Award in America on Sunday night. The film made by Maryann DeLeo covers the cancers, birth defects, and heart conditions suffered by "Chornobyl`s" children. It portrays their suffering today as the consequence of history`s most devastating nuclear catastrophe 18 years ago.

The film is 38 minutes long and took two years to make. Ironically, no one in Belarus or Ukraine has yet had the chance to view it. Oscar Academy Award rules do not allow for copies of films to be made once the nomination process begins. Nonetheless, the film will eventually be hailed as a milestone in the video history of Belarus, Ukraine, and Ireland. For the forward thinking political activists, environmentalists and ecologists (whose messages have been given precious little screen time over the past two decades) something far more hard-hitting than words on recycled paper will now come readily to hand.

In her acceptance speech, Maryann DeLeo gave a special thank you to Adi Roche - leader of the Chernobyl Children`s Project.

For 18 years, over 10,000 Belarussian and Ukrainian children have been given the opportunity to take short breaks in Ireland and take advantage of otherwise unaffordable (or unavailable) medical therapy, plus the benefits of clean coastal air and healthy balanced diets.

DeLeo also thanked Dr. William Novick who "saves the lives of children in Belarus and all over the world with the International Children`s Heart Foundation."

From as long ago as 1999, a children`s doctor from Belarus, Yuri Bandazhevsky, was severely and harshly given a prison sentence of 8 years [hard labour] by Belarussian authorities. Yuri remains listed with Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.