the bomb is a critically acclaimed immersive film, music, and art installation that puts viewers in the center of the story of nuclear weapons. It explores their immense power, their perverse allure, and the inherent danger at the very heart of them. An installation version of the bomb is currently touring museums, galleries, film festivals, and academic institutions.
SYNOPSIS
the bomb is a critically acclaimed immersive film, music, and art installation that puts viewers in the center of the story of nuclear weapons. It explores their immense power, their perverse allure, and the profound death wish at the very heart of them.
Combining archival footage, animation, music, and text, the bomb offers a visceral, non-linear, and unsettling experience, taking audiences inside the complex cultural and technological realm of nuclear weapons.
Live performances of the bomb were staged at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, the Glastonbury Festival, the Sydney Festival, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremonies.
The film at the heart of the bomb made its streaming debut on Netflix and can now be found on Amazon, Apple TV, Tubi, Roku, and other platforms.
In the Fall of 2024, a museum-version of the bomb begins a nationwide tour of university campuses.
Supporter Statement
"A stunning avant-garde approach to a plea for nuclear disarmament...unique and dazzling." - Entertainment Weekly
"A terrifying multimedia reminder of the power of nuclear weapons...not so much a film as it is an experience... haunting...unsettling...It was as immersive as it gets. The inherent strangeness of the experience--this not knowing what to do with oneself--made viewers vulnerable, which in turn made them more susceptible to the bomb's message." - Newsweek
"An abstract wonder and a literal nightmare: a dazzling view into the abyss." - New York Observer
"Mesmerizing...stunning...[the bomb] makes excellent use of archival materials and its space, building to a powerful, touching conclusion that magically stopped the audience cold in its tracks, creating a powerful communal experience--just as all good cinema ought to.” - The Film Stage
"It’s da bomb." - Hollywood Reporter
"the bomb is a hallucination, an instructional film, a warning film, cultural history, all aestheticized, everything moving as one. Enlightening anti-nuclear opera, which threatens, explodes and is mercilessly emotional. This is how you do this today. This is what can work." - Die Welt
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director Smriti Keshari
SMRITI KESHARI is an Indian-American director, writer, and artist known for her bold and groundbreaking contributions to storytelling. Her diverse portfolio spans traditional filmmaking, immersive installations, and live performances on stage, where she fearlessly explores bold themes like nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, and immortality.
She is an artist-in-residence with the National Theatre in London, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and Pioneer Works in New York. Her films have premiered in prestigious film festivals (Berlin Film Festival, Tribeca), streaming networks (Netflix, Amazon), theatrical releases and in museums.
Keshari's works have received support from notable organizations like the MacArthur Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, and more. She has spoken about art and social change at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremonies, United Nations, BBC, SXSW, Bloomberg Philanthropy, and TED. Keshari was honored as a TED Prize finalist and recognized as a 2016 Foreign Policy Global Creative Thinker.
She is currently in the development of a new project about archives and immortality.
Eric Schlosser is a writer whose work has been published in dozens of countries, performed on stage, and adapted into film. His most recent book, Command and Control, explores the secret history of America's efforts to prevent nuclear weapons from being stolen, sabotaged, or detonated by accident. It was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in History.
Schlosser’s earlier books were also New York Times bestsellers. Fast Food Nation helped launch a national conversation about the food industry and transformed how Americans think about what they eat. Reefer Madness examined the nation's underground economy, from black-market labor to illegal drugs.
As a producer, Schlosser has collaborated with major filmmakers on projects that bridge investigative journalism and visual storytelling. He was executive producer of Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, and the documentaries Food Chains and Hanna Ranch. He co-produced the Oscar-nominated Food, Inc. and serves as a producer on its sequel, Food, Inc. 2. The documentary adaptation of Command and Control made the Oscar shortlist and earned him a Writers Guild of America Award.
His upcoming book focuses on the American prison system.
Kevin Ford is an award-winning filmmaker known for his distinctive approach to both narrative and documentary storytelling. He produced, shot, and edited the Netflix feature documentary Sr., which premiered at Telluride, NYFF, and AFI, and won Best Documentary from the National Board of Review in 2022. In 2024, he completed Everything Is Stolen, an experimental feature starring Ellar Coltrane, which premiered at the Santa Fe International Film Festival. Ford previously directed, shot, and edited The Pushback (2020), a politically charged feature documentary produced by Richard Linklater and selected for SXSW. He co-produced, shot, and edited American Chaos (2018), released by Sony Pictures Classics. His earlier work includes The Bomb (director, editor), an experimental film on nuclear weapons that premiered at Tribeca (2016) and Berlinale (2017), and was featured at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. In 2015, he directed Stone Barn Castle, a meditative documentary with Adrien Brody, which premiered at SXSW. Ford’s credits include Three Days (Slamdance 1999), Legs (2014), Drowned (2020) and By The River (Sidewalk Film Festival, 2016).
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