“An old guy from Fryazino saved the planet from World War III.”

Dutch Public broadcaster VPRO’s Editor Gülhan Demirci brilliantly choose to broadcast the remarkable highly anticipated narrative feature documentary film ‘The Man Who Saved the World’ (TRAILER) (VIMEO) on September 1st 23:00 on NPO2 – “Een paar minuten had Stanislav Petrov maar om de wereld voor een kernoorlog te behoeden.” –  VPRO 2DOC IPLAYER HERE. The Film is debut directed by the multi talented Danish director Peter Anthony. The almost ten years in-the-making film has the unique ‘few people know of him’ story of Stanislav Petrov, a retired Soviet military officer, prevented the start of a worldwide nuclear war and the devastation of much of the Earth in on September 26th 1983, known as the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident. When Anthony went to meet Petrov for the first time he said the following: 

“the 67-year-old colonel was living in a small, squalid apartment block 90 minutes outside Moscow. I reached it via dirt roads. Outside, derelicts clutched vodka bottles, walking barefoot despite the –10C temperatures. The stairwell to the apartment stank of dog’s urine. In the living room, a disused sink sat next to ripped furniture. “It was a bum’s apartment”  (Tom Shone – ft.com/life & arts)

How did one Russian bum halt armageddon right? Anthony really had to draw from his skill set to the tell the story of – hero vs bum – , and served as the film’s director, contributed as a scriptwriter, co-editor, set design consultant and graphic designer. Which resulted in a: “At times the film-makers seem engaged not in making a movie of Petrov’s life, but in plotting his life as if it were a movie.”  For those who missed it you can watch the full film here. What makes this film so unique is the combining of feature narrative with documentary filmmaking. Highly recommend Tom Shone’s ft.com/life & arts: “Stanislav Petrov’s real life restaged” –  article and Colin Freeman The Telegrap’s “How did one grumpy Russian halt armageddon?” article. A-One-To-Watch! Photo credit: Statement Film, WG Film (co-production), Ego Media, (co-production), and Beofilm (co-production).