Photo Lichtblick-Kino

For the tourism industry, regions such as Sardinia and Hawaii are synonymous with “paradise”: magnificent beaches, mountains and the sea. But it is precisely here that the military (NATO, the USA) and arms manufacturers have established test sites where the radioactive and toxic “depleted uranium” (DU) is also used. This causes immense environmental damage and places a severe burden on people, animals and nature. 

This is what the protests by the local, often indigenous, population are directed against. Organisations such as ICBUW (International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, www.icbuw.eu) are taking action as part of civil society engagement. This also involves legal arguments and proceedings – there is a human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, as recently confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in an advisory opinion. Not least, films and the media help to highlight the issue and – together with possible forms of counter-action – raise awareness of it.

As part of their ‘Film and Talk about Nukes’ series, ICBUW and the International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF, www.uraniumfilmfestival.org) are organising a film and discussion event on the topic on 26 July 2026 at 6 pm at the Lichtblick Kino, Kastanienallee 77, 10435 Berlin (www.lichtblick-kino.org). 

The following films will be screened:

1. “Sardinia Secret (How NATO turned Sardinia into a radioactive nightmare)”, Journeyman Pictures, 2019, English, 30 mins – highlights the catastrophic consequences of weapons testing in Sardinia’s vast military exclusion zones and the political and legal activities opposing them;
2. “Pohakuloa: Now that you know, do you care?”, Office of Hawaiian Affairs (www.oha.org – with thanks for permission), 2014, English, 14 mins – highlights the severe contamination of areas (particularly from depleted uranium) that are in some cases sacred to the indigenous people of Hawaii.

This will be followed by a discussion between Denis Römer (IUFF) and Prof. Manfred Mohr, Co-Chair of ICBUW. Joining the discussion via video will be environmental journalist Stefania Divertito from Italy and Lynda Williams, an environmental activist and performance artist from Hawaii. Her video and music clip “Depleted Uranium” (2025, 3:31 mins) will also be shown. ICBUW is planning – together with other stakeholders – a film festival in Sardinia next year, which will address the thematic complex of “Environment – Military – DU” on site… 

Documentary

Secret Sardinia

Italy, 2019, 30 mins, Journeyman Pictures, English

Sardinia is an island split in two. On one side are the coastal villas of the uber-rich; on the other sits Europe’s largest bomb test site, polluting the island to terrible effect.

Over a third of Sardinia is banned from locals. It is controlled by the Italian military, who rent out the island as a testing ground for war. “Little islands have disappeared, erased by missiles shot from the land, the sky and the sea”, says former Sardinian president, Mauro Pili. Sardinians living beside firing ranges are fearful for their health, witnessing spikes in cancer and children born with deformities. In one village in one year, a shocking one-in-four new babies had some kind of defect. “My mother-in-law died of cancer. They cut my father-in-law’s leg off because it was cancerous. My father died. My sister died young of lung cancer”, says Sardinian citizen Guilio Angioni. Livestock have also been affected, giving birth to young with grotesquely twisted limbs. Despite the military’s secrecy in covering up the terrible health effects caused by Sardinia’s test sites, formal police investigations have finally shed clarity on the issue. “The causal link between the exposure to depleted uranium and diseases suffered…has been confirmed at a judicial level. This is a milestone”, reflects Gianpiero Scanu, leader of a two-year parliamentary inquiry.

Documentary

Pohakuloa: Now that you know, do you care?”

USA, 2014, 14 mins., Office of Hawaiian Affairs, English

Hawaii finds itself in the cross hairs between the military’s need and the need to protect the land and its people. Men have been living in harmony with nature – something being destroyed by continued bombing which will reverberate long after the Hawaiian people is gone.

Pohakuloa is a high plateau in the centre of Moku o Keawe having been used for military live-free training by the US army. The training area is situated close volcanic mountains which represent sacred land, or earth. Peace activists like Jim Albertini speak of sites lost and turned into toxic regions (inter alia) by the use of depleted uranium – something admitted by the US military while the extent of it still is not clear. After stopping the bombing there is urgent need of identifying the damage and cleaning up. Activists and experts agreeing on: The worst thing we can do is nothing…