Rad Venture 1986
Created by Michael Pogorelsky & Veronika Doljenkova
Michaeil Pogorelsky
Michael Pogorelsky is an applied physicist and an engineer turned writer. He holds Masters in Applied Physics from St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. His research and many years of industry experience resulted in a number of publications and patents. At the same time, he has a long standing interest in the military history, especially the equipment used during different conflicts. As a result, he is naturally drawn to the projects that both require a deep expertise in science or engineering but also involve a military conflict of some sort. For example, his most recent digital mini series screenplay, Aces Beyond, is about the top Soviet WWII pilots who saved Bell Aircraft Corporation. He is even more excited about Rad Venture 1986 since it will not only cover a military conflict in Afghanistan and an international illegal arms trade, but will also require a nuanced understanding of the nuclear industry, radioactive waste and Chernobyl disaster liquidation,- all an easy task for someone with his background.
Veronika Doljenkova
Unburdened by the writing experience, Veronika channels her creative energy into artistic undertakings and risky startup ventures. She has been a design advisor and and a co-founder at a number of tech startups, experimented with the beacon technology at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and worked in the world of fashion. Veronika has sketched/painted in many locations around the world, including Upernavik, Greenland, as an artist in residence at Upernavik Art Museum. Her artwork was exhibited in the New York City, across the US and online, and her illustrations were published in Cell, Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, and Conservation Matters magazine. She has a background in both art/design (SMFA, RISD) and biotechnology (Columbia University), and especially enjoys working on the projects at the intersection of both.
About the project
Logline: A shady Soviet-Afghan War veteran becomes an international arms dealer selling the menacing
Chernobyl disaster heritage.
It's personal: Both writers spent their childhood in Saint Petersburg, Russia (then still the Soviet Union on a brink of a collapse). When the Chernobyl disaster happened, they were about to enter an elementary school. Suddenly everyone was talking about it. From the little kid’s perspective the experience was scary, bizarre and surreal, like a dark fairytale. When the topic of Chernobyl resurfaced recently, when HBO’s mini series Chernobyl and the book Midnight in Chernobyl came out, the writers were able to reexamine the situation not only from the informed adult perspective but also by bringing their different life experiences to the table (Michael still lives in Saint Petersburg and Veronika has been living in the US for more than half of her life). For them, the interest now lies in going beyond a documentary by stepping into the realm fiction and pushing the boundaries to the level of absurdity.