New B.C. film revisits a Cold War setting while dreaming of a future 'with no hate in our heart'

A bit of Cold War history is the backdrop for a new short film that re-imagines what kind of peoplewould be allowed touse anuclear fallout bunker if it was needed today.

Kootenay poet Zaynab Mohammed and other local artists in Nelson, B.C., ventured underground to abunker built beneaththe Canada Post Office downtown in the 1960s to protect up to 70 government officials in the even of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.

Back then, most high-ranking bureaucrats werewhite middle-aged men so that's who would have been allowed into the sanctuary stocked with food and bunk beds.

Thatinspired Mohammed to create thefilm envisioningpeople of different ages, genders and cultural backgrounds insidethe shelter.

On Wednesday, Nelson's Touchstones Museum of Art and History which opened the bunker as a permanentpublic exhibitin 2020 after offering private tours since 2013 released Beneath the Surface, the 12-minute movieMohammed narrates in poetry.

WATCH| Beneath the Surface film imagines a diverse Cold War bunker

"So look up. See what is around. Above and beyond there is a world where we can all exist," she says in the film. "Wherewe can think different thoughts with no hate in our heart. Where we look out for each other ...aworld where the pyramid of control gets flipped upside down. Aworld where we are the leaders of our humanity."

Mohammed whose family is originally from the Middle East lived in Beirut, Lebanon, during herhigh school years. She says she's intrigued that a Canadianwartime shelter was only available for a certain group of people.

"The shelters there [in Beirut] are for everyone because everyone is important to survive and to make it through these times of crisis," she said to Chris Walker, the host of CBC's Daybreak South. "It's interesting that only 70 people in the community would have been carried through."

Mohammed says thepoem is "a piece [about] what's possible and shifting perceptions, and [about] taking the old and using it to move forward in a beautiful way and not repeating history."

Now, after a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's more necessary than ever to stand together, she says.

"We need each other to carry us forward. The more separated we are, the harder it's going to be to not repeat history."

Mohammed says she hopes the film would allow the viewers to dream of a future that they've never envisioned.

"To believe in what isn't and what has never been. There must be constellations full of stories, like songs, maps of perception. Wormholes to our freedom," her poem says.

Tap the link below to hear Zaynab Mohammed's interview on Daybreak South: