About

Since the unprecedented destructive power of the atom bomb was released upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, artists have explored fears around nuclear armament and the looming potential for total self-annihilation. 'Two Minutes to Midnight' is a cinema program that considers how filmmakers have grappled with the moral and logistical questions raised by humanity's harnessing of nuclear power. As nuclear stockpiles grow internationally and events such as the 2011 Fukushima disaster have shaken the world, it is evident that these quandaries do not reside solely in the past.

The program encompasses multiple genres and cinematic forms, including gripping depictions of human survival (Barefoot Gen 1983), merciless satires (Dr Strangelove 1964), unflinching dystopian prophecies (Letters from a Dead Man 1986), and radioactively-tinged science fiction (La Jetée 1962). Using the frameworks of traditional feature films, animation, experimental and short cinema, these works explore a topic that is frightening, mesmerising, and almost unimaginable.

The program title 'Two Minutes to Midnight' is derived from the time placed upon the symbolic Doomsday Clock in 1953, after both major superpowers tested thermonuclear weapons within months of each other. This was the closest to midnight — that is: the end of human civilisation — that the Doomsday Clock had ever been set, until the perceived failure of international leadership to ease global nuclear tensions returned it there in January 2018.