“Literally and Knowingly Poisoned”: Zhanana Kurmasheva Discusses ‘We Live Here’

We Live Here delves into the present-day reality of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site—known during the Soviet era as the Polygon—and the enduring devastation it has wrought on those who still live there. Director Zhanana Kurmasheva centers the story on Bolatbek, an elderly man who has spent his entire life in a village just 30 kilometers from the Polygon. The film begins inside his modest home, where he records an oral history of those who fell victim to the site’s legacy. The camera lingers briefly on a photograph of Bolatbek’s granddaughter, tracing the intergenerational struggle against the invisible beast of radiation. From Bolatbek’s village, the story moves to the city of Semipalatinsk, where Bolatbek’s son pleads with local officials, trying to prove that his daughter’s diagnosis, an extremely rare and life-threatening aplastic anemia, is the result of inherited radiation exposure.

While the tragedy of the Polygon has been chronicled before, often in government-backed, TV-style documentaries, Kurmasheva’s work approaches the subject differently, elevating it to a kind of myth—a legacy that strangely defines who Kazakhs are. We Live Here is steeped in a sense of foreboding. During our conversation, Kurmasheva repeatedly referred to radiation as “the beast,” which made me think of Henry James’s 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle—another tale of something unseen, lying in wait. In Kurmasheva’s haunting vision, it is the silent, invisible terror of radiation.

We Live Here premiered at CPH:DOX. Ahead of the film’s North American Premiere at Hot Docs, Documentary spoke to Kurmasheva about what makes residents stay in such a contaminated area, the genius loci of the steppe, and the interplay of beauty and violence embedded within it. This interview has been edited.

DOCUMENTARY: What led you to choose this theme for your debut film, and how did you go about preparing for the production?

ZHANANA KURMASHEVA: We worked on the film for three years. The first two years were spent on research, getting closer to the protagonists, and searching for funding. The third year was devoted to production and editing.

Originally, I was involved in a project filming reports around Kazakhstan about past disasters—the Aral Sea, Karlag [Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp], and others. I became curious about why people still live in those places. When we got to the Polygon, I was shocked by the absence of clear boundaries or warning signs that would, say, mark the “contaminated” steppe. How are people supposed to know where it’s safe to go? 

What struck me was the government’s indifference toward its people. I had thought the story of the Polygon was over. But if I hadn’t seen it for myself, I would never have known how the locals are actually living. I spent the night right there. It felt as though I had entered a kind of timeless zone, like I was stuck in the steppe and could not leave. The land itself felt unusual. We all knew how much it had suffered, and yet it felt majestic. I realized the land holds both beauty and cruelty, nurturing and indifference. The same indifference I had attributed to people seemed to be embedded in the land itself. People come and go, but the land remains.

D: While watching the film, I thought about this dialectic of beauty and violence. The opening scene shows what looks like hundreds of photographs scattered across the steppe, gently moved by the wind. It reminded me of land art. How did you come to see beauty in such violence?

ZK: At first, I wanted to film a night scene—somewhere between dream and reality, to evoke the voices of those who had died. Our main character, Bolatbek, told us about all the people he had lost—his sister, eldest son, and classmate. He spoke about how people would descend into the underground shafts looking for metal and cables to sell to China for a bit of money. One day, several young guys went down and never came back. That story haunted me. So those photographs in the opening scene became a tribute to them. They show people young and happy, unaware that the Polygon would one day take their lives.

Among Kazakhs, it’s a tradition to care for the spirits of the deceased. That is one of the reasons people do not leave—they want to tend to those graves, to keep those people’s lives alive, even if only in memory.

D: Are the faces in those photos real victims you discovered during your research?

ZK: My original plan was to travel around the Polygon with Bolatbek and collect photos for a book he was working on. But due to his advanced age and frail health, that did not happen. My mother was born in Semipalatinsk, so my family roots are there. In the end, the photos are of my deceased relatives. Not all of them are buried in the region, but they are all from there. In a way, the story of the Polygon became my personal story.

D: How did you find your protagonists? Was it always your intention to portray an intergenerational perspective within one family? Apart from the family, another key figure is ecologist Dmitry Kalmykov. How did you come to work with him?

ZK: Initially, I was focused only on the ecologist. He was the only person who could clearly and insightfully answer my questions. When I was preparing for the film, I interviewed him and he opened up even more. He told me how he had helped clean up after the Chernobyl disaster, and how he used to dream of saving some planet—until he realized the planet was Earth. That stayed with me, but I later realized the film needed more perspectives.

During our first research trip together, Dmitry introduced me to Bolatbek. That meeting helped me understand the complexity of the issue even more deeply. Bolatbek told me about his granddaughter’s illness, which he believes is directly caused by radiation exposure. So my film evolved—from being focused solely on the environment to exploring medical and social dimensions as well. Later, we met Bolatbek’s son. At first, he did not want his daughter to be filmed out of fear of bullying at school. But over time, we all agreed it was important to tell this story through a generational lens.

D: In the film, the ecologist says people should be relocated from the Polygon, or at least compensated medically and financially. There are, in fact, ways to help. During the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement, people protested, and public awareness was high. There was a strong desire to shut down the test site, and once it closed, it kind of disappeared from public discourse.

ZK: Exactly. The region is still officially classified as an emergency zone, but people continue to live there. While preparing for the film, I studied the work of Professor Bakhia Atchabarov, a doctor who led two medical expeditions to the Polygon in 1957 and 1959 to study the effects of nuclear explosions on humans and animals. They had limited resources, needing dozens of specialists in fields like endocrinology, otolaryngology,  brucellosis etc. Still, he concluded that the explosions were severely harmful to human and animal well-being. When he presented his findings to Soviet authorities in Moscow, he was silenced and even threatened. They showed him their own “data,” which claimed the explosions were safe for humans.

To this day, our Academy of Sciences holds only one book by Atchabarov. The rest, most likely, remain in Russia, classified as “top secret.” It was heartbreaking to realize that we were literally and knowingly poisoned. The Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement was actually based on Atchabarov’s work.

D: I was struck by the formal aspects of the film, particularly the rapid, rhythmic editing, the blending of archive footage with shots of the steppe, and symbolic imagery like galloping horses and spilled milk flowing on the ground. It reminded me of early Soviet montage, of Kuleshov and Eisenstein.

ZK: I was actually more inspired by Tarkovsky. I wanted to convey the poetry of the steppe. I happened to be re-reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez during production, which influenced me as well. I wanted to emphasize duality: life and death, the real and the mythical, the majestic and the horrifying.

Regarding the editing scenes you mentioned, my editor, Aidanа Serik, and I structured the film to mirror the phases of an atomic explosion. We wanted to evoke a sense of unease, a connection between past and present, and a foreboding of what might happen in the future, especially in light of the wars happening today. Radiation is like some kind of beast that is always nearby. It sees us, but we do not see it. It is silent and invisible—how do you portray that danger on screen?

That is why we decided to mix real and archival footage. I did not want to use archival footage alone, which would make events feel distant, as if they were already resolved. Cinematographer Kuanysh Kurmanbayev and I filmed several staged scenes too—for example, the one where the granddaughter draws the steppe, and then her drawing blends into the real landscape. I wanted to capture her thoughts about the future. During the principal photography, we did not know those shots would pair with archival images.

D: Finally, I would like to ask you about working with composer Akmaral Mergen. Her eerie and suspenseful score elevates the film to a kind of ominous myth, which reminded me of Mica Levi, who is responsible for the distinctive mood of Jonathan Glazer’s films.

ZK: Thank you for that comparison [laughs]. My producer, Banu Ramazanova, suggested working with Akmaral, who immediately connected with the story. She instinctively understood the emotional tone of certain scenes. For example, I described to her how certain scenes should sound like echoes of someone singing in the steppe, a lullaby, the whisper of silk carried by the wind, or particles of dust and radiation diffused in soft daylight. It was an intuitive and effortless collaboration.

Botagoz Koilybayeva is a Kazakh film critic and PhD student based in Prague. Her bylines include Klassiki, Little White Lies, Senses of Cinema, amongst others.