Lucy Walker Interview or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Fear the Bomb

Are you ready for the scariest film of the year? Lucy Walker's new documentary Countdown to Zero examines the ever-present nuclear threat, depicting it as a Sword of Damocles hanging over us all and ready to fall with the slightest nudge. During the course of the film, we hear stories about near-misses, accidental missile launches and the increasing ease with which nuclear material can fall into the wrong hands, as Walker paints a picture of a disaster that's just waiting to happen.

For Walker, this was an issue that had to be brought to the attention of the public at large. "I wanted to make a film that, if people watched it, they'd feel really empowered, like there would be nothing in the newspaper that they couldn't really grasp," she says. "Look at the Fukushima incident just now in Japan. Hopefully that story demonstrates how important it is that people do understand the issues and what's at stake. The thing we have to understand about nuclear material is that when something goes wrong it can go wrong in a way that's impossible to control or predict."

When you watch Countdown to Zero and see just how potent this threat is, it comes as a shock that the subject isn't already at the forefront of people's minds. "I think we all thought that the Soviet Union went away, and with it all of the terror we had in the 80's, so surely the nukes must have gone or we would be doing something about it," Walker suggests. "Unfortunately, some problems are so complex you realise it's easier to deny that there's a problem, but I think the film demonstrates that we'll be in worse trouble if we do ignore it than if we try to deal with it now."

The film feels particularly relevant in today's global climate, as conflicts around the world lead to an increased number of destabilised states. Walker believes that it's only a matter of time before such events lead to a nuclear catastrophe. "There's so much tremendous anxiety in the world and so far we haven't been in a position where a country has fallen apart while being in possession of nuclear weapons, but there's really nothing to prevent that happening. In the future, we will be in a situation, inevitably, where countries will have nuclear weapons and grow unstable."

As fearful as her words might sound, Walker remains hopeful that this situation can be resolved, and she has received an encouraging response from people in a position of power, telling me that Hillary Clinton gave the film "two thumbs up." She also has a powerful ally in Barack Obama, who has made it clear that nuclear weapons are a high priority on his agenda. "I've never had it confirmed that President Obama has seen it," she says, "but he has quoted from it at certain points, so I think it has been impactful. I don't know if they've changed the ending for the UK version but the ratification of the New START treaty happened and that was terrific, because we emphasised that as the first real step."

Countdown to Zero feels like a film that could make a widespread impact, enlightening cinemagoers and changing their perspective on the world, and for Walker, the possibility of having such an effect on an audience is one of the joys of being a documentary filmmaker. "We have this opportunity to look directly at the world and understand really important, fundamental, exciting things that are going on in our world using state of the art film equipment," she says. "I feel like documentary filmmaking is where it's at right now and that's why I enjoy it so much."