Nuclear Conspiracy
Trailer · Background Material · Pictures · Official Site · Flyer [554 KB]
Directed By: Rainer Erler
Cast: Birgit Doll, Albert Fortell, Mark Lee, Kitty Myers, Lucia Bensasson
running time: 117 Min.
Targa d'Oro - Premio Italia 1986, Emmy Award Nomination, Golden-Flame-Award, Kurd Lasswitz Preis
Synopsis:
A billion dollar shipload of nuclear waste, the most valuable but also most dangerous cargo ever to cross the ocean, represents a desirable target for ruthless profiteers. Concentrated death, in the wrong hands, is profitable merchandise. The owners believe that the consignment is bound for a high-tech recycling plant in Australia but DAVID, a freelance journalist with the London based NEWS agency, is suspicious. He is hot on the trail hoping to make a scoop with the scandal of the century. But the crooks are already after him and when he telephones his wife, SUSAN, the line is cut.
Susan, who hasn't heard from David for weeks, knows that there is something wrong and that she must help him, but nobody wants to know because the risks are too great. Finally STEVEN, a photojournalist for the
NEWS agency, decides to assist her in the hope that he will realize a front page serial to NEWS from his involvement. Susan goes through David's files and discovers photographs of a nuclear power plant and of a
freight-liner, the »Stella Maris«. The ship, which is registered in Marseille, transports nuclear waste. Susan goes to Marseille where she is hunted down and lucky to escape with her life.
Undeterred she and Steven travel to New York to interview Hopkins, a NEWS man with inside knowledge of the «Stella Maris« but, soon after their meeting, he is shot dead in his apartment. They now have reason to
believe that David had smuggled himself on board the freighter when it set sail for Singapore.
In Singapore they trace two crew members of the cargo-liner. Both are suffering from radiation burns but they confirm that Australia is the ship's ultimate destination. They fly to Perth where they track down another sailor but, before they can interrogate him, he is run down by a car. It is an Aborigine who reveals that there is a construction site in the middle of the desert and that gigantic steel containers have been left there. They locate the spot by helicopter and their search ends when they discover David who has been left for dead under an abandoned truck. Protected from the sun and sustained only by a container of cooling liquid he has survived.
The quest is at an end. It is a time for mutual congratulations. The press gather round for the moment of triumph but the celebration is short lived. The recycling plant does not exist and the steel containers are empty. The deadly contents have already found a new owner...
This is an action-packed suspense drama with a plot which introduces exciting locations in both of the world's hemispheres. Although filmed for thrills and nonstop entertainment its topical story may be tomorrow's headlines.
