FIRST OFF . . .

Director-producer Stanley Kramer plans to make a film in the Soviet Union about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, he said in Moscow on Monday. Attending the 15th annual Moscow Film Festival, Kramer said he has been planning the untitled film for nine months and that he is eager to visit the Chernobyl area and to talk to eyewitnesses of the 1986 disaster. In an interview with a Soviet reporter, Kramer said, “It’s a particularly exciting time in the Soviet Union, particularly for film makers, authors, painters because of the general feeling of their ability now to ask questions and to be critical.” Kramer said the idea for a Chernobyl film originated with British-born Columbia Pictures Chairman David Puttnam. This will be Kramer’s first film project since spending five years writing and teaching in Seattle. He is best known for the movies “On the Beach,” “Judgment at Nuremberg” and “Ship of Fools.”