Post-screening discussion with director Brittany Prater!

Uranium Derby is a feature-length documentary about a young woman's look into an experiment gone wrong - the American nuclear experiment. This film depicts the manner in which toxic nuclear waste, generated and collected in a few specific places, was allowed to spread to numerous sites around a small Midwestern university town and subsequently the country.

The story, centered in Ames, Iowa, begins with a curious filmmaker (Brittany Prater) casually looking into her hometown's highly secretive involvement in the Manhattan Project during the 1940s. The historical role of Ames in the production of materials for the first atomic bomb is portrayed with archival footage featuring two important scientists involved at the time (Dr. Harley Wilhelm and Dr. Frank Spedding). Interviews with present-day physicists, a historian and the elderly spouse of a lab worked also present the story. Prater uncovers information that changes her perception of her hometown.