Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island

Directed By Heidi Hutner

A feminist feature documentary about the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown with never-before-told stories.

  • ABOUT
  • BIO
At the prompting of an ecofeminism professor turned visual journalist, the four original “concerned” mothers, a two-woman legal team and a reporter, now all much older, wiser, and bolder, break open years of corporate silencing and nuclear industry doublespeak, and tell their stories about the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident, the worst commercial nuclear reactor meltdown in U.S. history. And though this disaster took place in 1979, the life and death implications continue in the spiritual, physical, and political DNA of the community, its residents, and their descendants.
Heidi Hutner is a first-time documentary feature filmmaker, professor at Stony Brook University, and widely published author on ecofeminism and environmental justice. Of late, Hutner has shifted her work to filmmaking, as she has always had a passion for visual story telling. Hutner believes it is high time for all underrepresented groups and excluded film folks claim space in the white male dominated film industry. RADIOACTIVE: THE WOMEN OF THREE MILE ISLAND (Hutner's first film), a feature documentary about the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown--explores the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history through a feminist lens. The documentary covers the never-before-told stories of four intrepid homemakers, two lawyers who took the local community's case all the way to the Supreme Court, and a young female journalist who was caught in the radioactive crossfire. RADIOACTIVE features activist and actor Jane Fonda--whose film, CHINA SYNDROME (a fictional account of a nuclear meltdown), opened 12 days before the real disaster in Pennsylvania. RADIOACTIVE also breaks the story of a radical new health study (in process) that may finally expose the truth of the meltdown. For over forty years, the nuclear industry has done all in their power to cover up their criminal actions, claiming, as they always do, "No one was harmed and nothing significant happened."