“Are you sure you want to help us, Doctor? You are not treating us. You are experimenting on us.”

Oppenheimer, as Christoph Nolan described in his recent titular film, warned us about the nuclear race. While the American scientist was being cross-examined in the US, a top-secret scientific research experiment began at the Vinča Institute near Belgrade.

On 15 October 1958, human error or a faulty reactor caused a ten-minute uncontrollable chain reaction that irradiated everyone present. The incident was classified for decades but in 2017, Professor Goran Milašinović uncovered the fact in a semi-fictional novel “The Case of Vinča”, which inspired this award-winning Balkan thriller.

48 hours after the event, the gravely irradiated scientist Dragoslav Popović and three assisting students flew into Paris Airport. Their health is deteriorating rapidly day by day. What could have happened behind the securely closed doors of the Vinča Institute?

The anti-bomb French oncologist Georges Mathé believes that Mr. Popović doesn’t deserve to be cured. After several painful attempts, he suggests an untested bone marrow graft as the only alternative to save the unfortunate patients. While doctors have no idea how to convince donors, car mechanic Rejmon and his wife, perfumer Odette, volunteer upon reading an article about young Yugoslavs sentenced to death in a secluded hospital. Incredible friendship bonds them in a risky transplant ordeal without guaranteed outcomes.

Edvinas Pukšta