FULL BODY BURDEN

A feature length documentary from HaveyPro Cinema
based on the award-winning book by Kristen Iversen

Full Body Burden is Kristen Iversen’s story of growing up in a small Colorado town in the shadow of Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant. It is also a story about the destructive power of secrets — family secrets and government secrets — and the cost of deception. Today, as development pushes against the borders of the former plant site and the United States moves closer to a renewed nuclear arms race, a clear-eyed assessment of our nuclear legacy is increasingly urgent.

We are kicking off a fundraising campaign to complete production of the Full Body Burden documentary beginning April 1st and Kristen Iversen has generously offered to match the first $15,000 in contributions to the film. Please help us unlock these funds and double your donation by contributing to the film today.

If our fundraising goal is met, these donations will allow HaveyPro Cinema to complete production and release the film later this year!

Our goal is to match her contribution with $15,000 in Major Sponsorships (3 at $5,000) and $15,000 in Supporting Sponsorships (5 at $1,000, plus 20 at $500), and donations of any amount are welcomed and appreciated! All sponsorships are tax deductible donations to the International Documentary Association 501(c)(3).

With the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge now open to the public for recreation, and housing developments and highways pressing toward the former plant's perimeter, there is an urgent need for a broadened understanding of Rocky Flats' nuclear history. The Department of Energy is currently spending billions of dollars to restart production of the plutonium triggers formerly fabricated at Rocky Flats in New Mexico and South Carolina. The time to understand the lessons of the past and renew public debate on our nuclear future is now!

Synopsis

1951 - To the surprise of Colorado’s citizens and elected officials, the Atomic Energy Commission announces that it has selected “an old rocky cow pasture” just outside the quickly growing city of Denver as the site of a new nuclear production plant. While local papers, businesses and contractors gladly anticipate the flow of federal dollars, specifics of the plant’s activities are veiled in secrecy.

In reality, Rocky Flats is tasked with producing the radioactive heart of every nuclear weapon produced in the United States for the next thirty years. Over the lifespan of the plant over 3000 pounds of plutonium, with a half-life of 24,000 years, will be classified as “Material Unaccounted For.”

Combining a poignant personal memoir with a highly researched work of investigative journalism, Full Body Burden is a detailed and shocking account of the United States government’s nuclear weapons production and the sustained attempt to conceal the toxic and radioactive material released by Rocky Flats. Years of protest, lawsuits, and health studies culminate in 1989, as the FBI and EPA conduct an unannounced raid on the plant investigating environmental crimes. The lawsuits and investigations that flow from the raid begin to uncover decades of negligence and deception along with the toxic threat lurking just beyond suburban yards.

The mid-century neighborhoods near Rocky Flats embody the post-war American ideal, but behind the idyllic suburban façade a more complex story unfolds. Many residents were among the thousands of Cold Warriors who proudly fulfill their mission to build the sophisticated mechanisms meant to protect the nation, while raising their own nuclear families on the generous paychecks from the plant. But government pressure to keep nuclear components rolling off the production line leads to a culture that values speed and production over safety. Multiple releases of radioactive contaminants threaten not only workers at Rocky Flats, but the burgeoning metropolis on the horizon. In 1969, a large fire sends a plume of radioactive smoke drifting over the Denver metro area with only the desperate heroics of plant firefighters preventing a Chernobyl-level disaster.

While experts, government officials and activists have long debated the legacy of Rocky Flats, the public is still largely unaware of past events and how they affect critical decisions today. As lawmakers prepare to allocate billions of dollars to ramp up future production of new plutonium pits, the need is urgent to understand the lessons gleaned from previous production. Full Body Burden is a comprehensive and compelling narrative of the atomic age that will engage the public with information necessary to make informed decisions about our shared atomic legacy.

Urgency

With the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge now open to the public for recreation, and housing developments and highways pressing toward the former plant’s perimeter, the need for a broadened understanding of Rocky Flats’ nuclear history is urgent. Publication of Full Body Burden in 2012 sparked renewed interest in the story of Rocky Flats, gaining national and international acclaim. By weaving together a detailed historical record of the facility with the intimate story of nearby neighborhoods, Full Body Burden provides audiences with an emotional connection to what can otherwise be a complex and baffling topic.

Though the specter of nuclear war has receded from the forefront of public imagination, the threat is not gone. The United States continues to maintain an arsenal of nuclear weapons capable of decimating all life on Earth. Increasing threats from rogue states like North Korea, new technological developments from traditional adversaries like Russia, and the decline of international non-proliferation treaties, among other factors, led the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to set their Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight in 2020; closer to apocalypse than ever before.

In the next decade, the US government will restart production of the plutonium triggers formerly fabricated at Rocky Flats. There is an urgent need to understand the lessons of the past as lawmakers allocate billions of dollars to ramp up future production. The time for a resurgent public debate on our nuclear future is now.

Production Timeline

Development & Pre-Production (Complete)

Archival Research, Initial Interviews, Trailer Production, Website Development

Production (Ongoing)

Interviews, Principal Photography, Script Development, Preliminary Editing, Continued Fundraising

Post-Production (2023)

Final Edit, Visual Effects Production, Music Composition & Recording

Premiere & Distribution (2024)

Premiere Event, Film Festival Screenings, Theatrical, Television & Streaming Distribution

Production Team

HaveyPro Cinema

The Emmy Award winning production team at HaveyPro Cinema specializes in compelling and artistic films to broaden perspectives on stories that matter. From legacy films to preserve history and ideals, to documentaries featuring people, places and stories that matter, HaveyPro films make a powerful connection to hearts and minds at special events, in theaters, online, and on television. Documentaries produced for television and education include: Beyond Zero, The Art of Aging Well, The Great Divide, Centennial Statehouse: Colorado’s Greatest Treasure, Denver Union Station: Portal to Progress, Molly Brown: Biography of a Changing Nation, Downtown Denver: Heart of the Queen, Colfax Avenue: Main Street Colorado, The Five States of Colorado, and Forging the West. Honors include three regional Emmy Awards, ten Telly Awards, two First Place National Municipal Television Awards, the People’s Choice Award for Documentary at the 2020 Denver Film Festival, Best Story at the 2020 Boston Film Festival, and numerous honors and screenings at film festivals around the world.

International Documentary Association — Fiscal Sponsor

The IDA is dedicated to building and serving the needs of a thriving documentary culture. Through its programs, it provides resources, creates community, and defends rights and freedoms for documentary artists, activists, and journalists. Since 1998, the fiscal sponsorship program has been directly accomplishing this mission by helping hundreds of independent documentaries which may otherwise have been unable to secure funding, get funded, finished, and seen. IDA is a 501(c)(3) public charity and last year administered over $7 million dollars in donations and grants to sponsored projects.

Kristen Iversen, PhD — Executive Producer

Kristen is the author of Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, winner of the Colorado Book Award and the Reading the West Book Award, and one of the Best Books of 2012 in Kirkus Reviews, The American Library Association, and Mother Jones, and the 2012 Best Book About Justice in The Atlantic. Iversen’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The American Scholar, Reader’s Digest, and many other publications. She has appeared on C-Span, NPR’s Fresh Air, and BBC World Outlook, and worked extensively with A&E Biography, The History Channel, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She currently heads the Ph.D. program in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Cincinnati and has lectured across the U.S. and abroad. Full Body Burden was recently published in China and Japan, and Iversen was chosen as a Fulbright Scholar to the University of Bergen, Norway, for 2020-2021.

Nathan Church — Director

Nathan is a Colorado native who grew up a few miles from the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. He joined HaveyPro in 2001 as Art Director and Editor and has spent the past 20 years involved in all aspects of documentary production. From cinematography and editing, to sound and production design, Nathan has been instrumental in the completion of dozens of films that have been recognized in festivals and national competitions, including three regional Emmys, two First Place National Municipal Television Awards, and ten Telly Awards. Most recently, he was the Editor and DP for Beyond Zero, which won the People’s Choice Award for Documentary at the 2020 Denver Film Festival and Best Story at the 2020 Boston Film Festival, before screening around the world. Full Body Burden is his first directorial effort

Jim Havey — Producer

Jim earned a degree in Political Science and Sociology from St. Ambrose University. Following seven years in social work with at-risk youth, Jim developed a passion for photography and multi-image production into a new career, founding HaveyPro Cinema in 1979. Inspired by the work of Jacob Bronowski and Ken Burns, Jim has been enriching viewers with films that tell the stories of western and American history for over 40 years. He has produced and directed dozens of documentaries with HaveyPro Cinema, including the Heartland Emmy Award winning films Centennial Statehouse: Colorado’s Greatest Treasure, Broomfield: Spirit of the American Dream, and Written in Water.

Jeff Jenkins — Music Director

Jeff is one of the region’s top jazz piano players whose talents include composing, performing and conducting for a variety of film and stage productions. Jeff is also an adjunct professor of music at University of Colorado in Boulder. He has toured with major national theatrical productions, played in jazz festivals throughout the US and Europe, and composed music for many award-winning HaveyPro films.

Production

Production is underway and interviews are ongoing with a diverse array of historians, writers, plant workers, residents, government officials, environmental activists, and others. Recent interviews include noted whistleblower and author Daniel Ellsberg, discussing his involvement in the Rocky Flats protest movement, as well as the larger context of the international nuclear weapons complex. Adapted from the text of Full Body Burden, the script will tell the intertwined stories of the author’s coming of age and the development of the plant, providing a personal connection that will engage audiences and bring the broader story to life. Archival imagery and sound are being sourced from government files, university collections, anti-nuclear activist organizations, former plant workers, archival documentaries, oral history collections, newspaper archives and unreleased home movies. Graphics and maps from the vast collection of visual material and data related to Rocky Flats will be animated and illuminated. Imagery from Kristen Iversen’s family collection will evoke the author’s childhood. Original footage is being shot onsite at Rocky Flats, in surrounding communities and at events, including activist rallies, regulatory meetings and symposia commemorating key events. In addition, originally produced footage will recreate key moments from the personal narrative while complimenting archival imagery. Musical thematic development and composition has begun.

Distribution

The filmmaking team is pursuing a multi-tiered distribution strategy. Initially, the film will be submitted to top tier film festivals (Sundance, Toronto, Telluride, HotDocs, DocNYC, ect.) for consideration. Subsequently, we will submit the film to second tier national and regional festivals with a particular focus on regions adjacent to current and former Department of Energy facilities (14+ states). Festival appearances, audience interest, and press coverage will then be leveraged to pursue streaming/theatrical distribution partners. We will also be organizing a series of screenings in cooperation with an international network of nuclear activist organizations (Beyond Nuclear International, NSquare, Hibakusha Stories, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and many others) with a specific focus on communities affected by nuclear weapons development. These screenings will be followed by panel discussions intended to spark interest and broaden the conversation to issues specific to each locale. HaveyPro Cinema has previously partnered with Colorado Humanities to produce educational guides for our documentaries and distribute them free to schools and libraries throughout Colorado. Additionally, we will utilize our existing relationships with National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) and Rocky Mountain PBS to distribute the film to public television stations throughout the country, and the film will be available for individual TVOD screening.

Words of Support

"I grew up in a picture-perfect landscape. Just down the road, the secret Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant was building tens of thousands of plutonium triggers— uninhibited by environmental regulation or regard for public health. Rocky Flats is the poster child of what goes wrong when you mix plutonium and politics. It is a critical and devastating story in the history of the United States. And the story isn’t over. This film will bring the critical story of Rocky Flats to new audiences that need to understand our nuclear legacy."

Kristen Iversen
Author, Full Body Burden
Professor of English & Comparative Literature, University of Cincinnati

“The Doomsday Machines of our existing arsenal, on both sides, are each a hundred or more times more than can be justified under any circumstances. And the possibility that they can be triggered by false alarm, or by a conflict that escalates, is an absolutely intolerable situation. The question of the morality of our posture has never really been addressed. Citizens must wake from this sleep of obedience, this state of denial, this course to oblivion.”

Daniel Ellsberg
Writer, Lecturer, Activist

"Einstein said, 'The splitting of the atom has changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking. Thus, we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.' Understanding our nuclear past, present and future is essential to changing our modes of thinking. The Full Body Burden documentary film will help create the educated public necessary to change the priorities of our governments."

Helen Caldicott M.D.
Beyond Nuclear

"This film will be a vital tool to help educate the public about the ongoing legacy of Rocky Flats, a story that has direct consequences on the public health and economic wellbeing of the region both immediately and in the very long term future. Understanding the origins of the threats that are still just below the surface at Rocky Flats and other sites around the country is essential to protect our communities and prevent the spread of environmental contamination in the years to come."

Dr. Harvey Nichols
Professor Emeritus of Biology, University of Colorado
Rocky Flats Technical Group

"The Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant was shrouded in secrecy for most of its years of operation and the silencing of this story continues today. This bold and important new documentary will reveal this vital piece of hidden nuclear history. Viewers will never look at nuclear weapons in the same way again."

Dr. Heidi Hutner
Director of Sustainability Studies & Environmental Humanities
SUNY Stony Brook

"Researching the legacies of Rocky Flats has shown me that the facility and its impacts on local communities are just as alive as ever. Yet, they remain invisible without this sort of in-depth, careful, and compassionate coverage of the people living near the old nuclear weapons plant. Kristen Iversen has been vital in encouraging people to tell their stories and in building the community of survivors and concerned citizens. Her integral role to this project speaks volumes about its authenticity, its importance, and its ability to get to the core of the puzzles that still surround Rocky Flats."

Stephanie Malin, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University
Co-Founder and Co-PI, Environmental Justice CSU

"In 1995, the Department of Energy's own working group on the future of Rocky Flats recommended by consensus that all plutonium from the site be removed. ‘We are willing,’ the report said, ‘to wait as long as is necessary, … even if that takes many generations to accomplish.’ DOE, having asked for a recommendation, ignored it. Most of that plutonium is still out there, just below the surface. We absolutely must have tools like this film to make sure we never forget about it."

LeRoy Moore, PhD
Rocky Flats Nuclear Guardians
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center

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