This week (7th May), DocHouse are hosting a special DocHouse Thursday screening of Peter Anthony’s epic cold war ‘thriller’, The Man Who Saved The World.

 “Few people know of Stanislav Petrov… yet hundreds of millions of people are alive because of him.”

1983. The height of the Cold War. Stanislav Petrov is the man with his finger on the button when Russian radars intercept what appear to be five American nuclear missiles heading straight towards Russian soil. With alarm bells ringing and panic spreading, will Petrov fire back and start a nuclear world war, or break protocol and trust instead the gut instinct that tells him it’s a false alarm.

You may never have heard of Petrov, but his actions on 26 September 1983 saved us from World War III, sparing the lives of millions. Yet, decades later we find him a ruined man, forgotten and struggling, his life unravelling around him. When he is unexpectedly invited to New York to speak at the UN, Petrov embarks on a spectacular journey, finally receiving the recognition he deserves and starting to come to terms with the past.

The Man Who Saved The World (Starring non-other than; Walter Cronkite, Robert De Niro, Matt Damon and Kevin Costner) powerfully combines stunning reconstruction of the past and real-life filming today, expertly interweaving the two into a nerve-tingling cold war thriller and an extraordinary warning to avoid the mistakes of the past.  Director Peter Anthony will join after the screening for a Q&A via Skype.

“I’m not a hero. I was just in the right place at the right time.”– Stanislav Petrov

The Bertha DocHouse screen is the UK’s first cinema dedicated solely to documentary films and events. Housed at the newly renovated Curzon Bloomsbury (formally the Renoir) the 55-seat Bertha DocHouse screen offers a vibrant programme of international cross-genre documentaries, as well as frequent post-screening filmmaker Q&As, panel discussions and events, 7 days a week. DocHouse aim to celebrate the depth and breadth of the documentary form with films from the UK release calendar as well as titles without distribution, festival favourites and a strong range of themed seasons and retrospective screenings. Their flagship DocHouse Thursdays strand continues its special previews and premieres of a finely selected bunch of docs that stand out from the crowd.

We look forward to exploring the world of documentary on offer at London’s new centre for docs and we don’t think there is a film better suited to set you off on your journey.

Book your tickets now and see what else is coming up at Dochouse.