Bioterrorism film to air next month on ‘Nova’

SOUTH PORTLAND – When Kirk Wolfinger began making a documentary film nine months ago for the public television series “Nova,” the film was going to be one hour long and air next February.

With the recent anthrax attacks, that has changed. “Bioterror” is now scheduled to air Nov. 13, will be 90 minutes long and will have new information that previously wasn’t included. Wolfinger says that the program’s British production partner wants a 50-minute version of the film by Sunday.

For Wolfinger, who owns Lone Wolf Pictures with his wife, Lisa, that has meant round-the-clock editing for him and his staff at the company’s studio in South Portland. The film takes a close look at the history of biological weapons, including previously unreported details of secret biological warfare efforts of the Soviet Union and United States during the Cold War.

Wolfinger said that during the making of the film, experts told him that anthrax attacks were unlikely because they were “impractical.”

“There was that anthrax incident in Florida, and then another one,” Wolfinger said. “It was tampered with [so it could] be blown into the atmosphere – all the things people said it would be tough to do.”

Work for the film began more than two years ago, when three reporters from The New York Times began researching biological weapons. The reporters collaborated on “Germs,” a book that was released last month and is now a best seller.

The Nova documentary follows the reporters as they track the evolution of biological weaponry. They travel to factories that produced biological weapons in the former Soviet Union, and to a test site in Nevada where the U.S. government has been working on bioterrorism demonstrations.

As the anthrax scare continues to develop, PBS is touting the Lone Wolf documentary for its timeliness, said Rocky Collins, the film’s writer and producer.

“There’s almost an information overload right now,” said Collins. “There’s up-to-the-minute news about a situation no one really understands.”

Alan Ritsko, managing director of “Nova,” praised Wolfinger’s directing in “Bioterror,” which had a budget of $450,000 and is Lone Wolf’s 10th documentary for “Nova.”

Ritsko said Wolfinger’s film offers a frightening look into a dark science.

“I would call this look fairly gritty,” said Ritsko. “He’s chosen to shoot some of the interviews not on a tripod but with a hand-held camera. It makes you feel like you’re there.”