ecology

The Sidi Bouzid beach near the Moroccan port city of El Jadida is famed for its crystal-clear sear and extraordinary biodiversity. There are dozens of species of algae. However, some of them are used by pharmaceutic and food companies to produce agar powder. The nearby factories producing canned fish and phosphate fertilizer pollute water and air. This documentary uses performative interventions which erase the distinction between the human and the natural to explore the multilayered relationship of the locals to the ecosystem which is a source of both awe and their livelihood. “He is the one who subjected the sea for you to eat tender flesh from it and to extract from it ornaments which you wear.” ---Source: An inscription on a Shafei emblem quoted in the film

The musical compilation of five performers is complemented by haptic images of sculptural objects, where the author emphasizes the materiality of the fabric. In the wake of the current ecological crisis, the film outlines a surreal world in which the imaginations of new organisms materialize.“Michaela Rožnovská sculptural objects, in collaboration with Martin Dominik Kratochvíl, make imaginations of new animals on earth visible, based on abstracted shapes of plants or the simplest organisms living on this planet. They present themselves as heirs of our culture, mythology and religion.”---Source: https://invenio.nusl.cz/record/501818?ln=cs

A visual essay accompanied by ambient electronica presents a virtual environment that only seemingly resembles our everyday world. 3D digital objects composed of both technological and organic structures create a dystopic unfamiliar landscape from which all human traces have disappeared a long time ago. “The design process reflects my views on various topics, which are significant to me, at the moment of creation, and which I try to resolve within myself, subconsciously or perhaps subliminally.” ---Source: Interview: The virtual world of thoughts: Artist Kristýna Sidlárová presents her project Digital Climate. Novy Zine 1. https://novyzine.com/Digital-Climate

The operation of the Turów brown coal mine and electric plant in the area around the Czech-Polish-German tripoint has been springing tensions in international relations. For the Polish, Turów is a means of livelihood, while local Czechs fear an eventual expansion of the plant would lead to drinking water deficiency and other ecological problems. This conflict, seen from a distance, is symbolized by the Czech-Polish contest for the best homemade potato salad, in which Teresa, whose family is employed at the plant, takes part.“You know, we are just ‘lowly humans’, we don’t decide anything. It would be very bad if we didn’t have water here, but we don’t understand these things, it’s a game amongst those at the top.” – Anonymous protagonist

The Guadiana River, which forms the link between Portugal and Spain and serves as a powerful source of water supplying vital energy to the entire southeastern Iberian Peninsula, may soon dry up completely. Like many other rivers, its very existence has come under threat by climate change, which is also, in turn, leading to the demise of the rhythmic cadences that have resounded along this water flow for centuries.“We, human beings, are a plague. A plague that is overloading its own planet. And, what's worse, a plague that is aware of being so.”

The primary motif of the documentary is the journey. A metaphorical journey, a spiritual journey, a tangible journey, a forest path, a road, a sidewalk, a drug trip, or a journey abroad. The director pastes together a collage of micro-stories of people and places that comment on the journey. Her documentary oscillates between playful absurdism, existentialism and existential questions, environmentalism, and social commentary. The dynamism and rhythm of the narrative are then determined by the jumps between different forms of video, such as analogue film, digital film, and mobile phone filming.“I think there's this idea of adventure, that you go somewhere straight, and you don’t know where you're going. It doesn’t matter where you go, as long as you get somewhere.” — Roman Prahl, art historian

At the end of the 1970s, the Taiwanese coastline was dotted by several futuristic, elliptical buildings that became known as “UFO Houses”. However, this beachfront resort, cheekily catering to the fantasy of American lifestyle, soon failed and the legacy of visionary real estate agents now stands as a ghost town. The author in his film essay ponders over capitalism, architecture and the meanings of utopia, combining digital and celluloid materials to build up audiovisual experience with a similar kind of energy to that of these “UFO Houses”. “After decades, real estate speculators and opportunists were long gone, what remains is the northeast monsoon wind howling across the semi-abandoned houses. After all, history is repeating itself, akin to annual crab migration.” (Chun-Tien Chen)---Source: https://filmfreeway.com/ChronicleofNowhere927

This documentary film by Jennifer Baichwal tells the story behind the Johnson v. Monsanto Co. lawsuit filed by Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, who sued the agrochemical corporation Monsanto for exposing him to the Roundup herbicide product that gave him cancer. Johnson's case was the first of thousands of lawsuits filed against the company and its herbicide glyphosate, which at one point was among the best-selling herbicides in the world. The film not only covers Johnson's story, but also exposes the greed of a large corporation that puts profit over people's health and manipulates scientific studies to its advantage. The film also serves as an environmental and humanistic call to action and avoids focusing solely on one specific court case. “In telling Johnson’s story, Into the Weeds asks whether this kind of David versus Goliath fight can effect substantial and lasting change.”---Source: https://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/episodes/into-the-weeds

This documentary film, which is based on the field-recording research method, gives space to the physical places where important energy, natural, and political processes take place. The director, musicians Václav Havelka and Pan Throrarensen, philosopher Lukáš Likavčan, and field-recordists Sara Pinheiro and Magnús Bergson all ask the question: “What are sounds that we don’t attach any importance to in our everyday lives trying to tell us and how can they predict the sequence of events that affects our lives?” Here, sound becomes a tool that can oftentimes capture geological time better than an image.“The aim of this Czech-Icelandic art project is to focus primarily on future critical infrastructure and breaking points through sound.” — Ivo Bystřičan---Source: https://www.ceska-krajina.cz/2869/zvuky-prirody-v-rezervaci-velkych-kopytniku-dnes-nahravali-umelci-v-ramci-mezinarodniho-projektu/  

This documentary film, which is based on the field-recording research method, gives space to the physical places where important energy, natural, and political processes take place. The director, musicians Václav Havelka and Pan Throrarensen, philosopher Lukáš Likavčan, and field-recordists Sara Pinheiro and Magnús Bergson all ask the question: “What are sounds that we don’t attach any importance to in our everyday lives trying to tell us and how can they predict the sequence of events that affects our lives?” Here, sound becomes a tool that can oftentimes capture geological time better than an image.   “The aim of this Czech-Icelandic art project is to focus primarily on future critical infrastructure and breaking points through sound.” — Ivo Bystřičan   --- Source: https://www.ceska-krajina.cz/2869/zvuky-prirody-v-rezervaci-velkych-kopytniku-dnes-nahravali-umelci-v-ramci-mezinarodniho-projektu/

Rapper Čavalenky tells the story of the oak forest. A story of trees whose roots date back to the time before the Anthropocene and whose wood helped humanity achieve the most fundamental historical breakthroughs. Trees, whose value we perceive only through its market potential because they're only worth something to us when they're cut down, chopped, and sold. “Trees are not silent. They're telling us what happened. Over the years, the memory of nature has become embedded in them.”

A modern-day aborigine, alone on a deserted planet, surrounded by cold nature, builds a new world from the remnants of an extinct civilization. This surreal audiovisual work reflects on the question of human existence when the world is on the verge of destruction, evoking the mourning of an activist artist over an ecological catastrophe.“The motto of the Native character, who wanders the landscape with unbounded imagination, is to translate sentiment into creative new approaches. This is probably the only way to cope with the current state of affairs.”---Source: Comment on the video

An audiovisual essay using a digitized, 8mm format that addresses questions of what the essence of contemporary art is and who it's made for. The film, which is divided into nine chapters, is based on practical experience and the works that are on display in the Gandy Gallery in Bratislava. It examines the relationship between the artwork as a whole and its features, signatures, and also institutional background.“The works of art resemble the things around us, mysteriously reflecting reality. Institutions are also similar to the objects we know. They mirror the way we act.”

The northernmost city in the world, Longyearbyen, is the most populated settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. A Czech social anthropologist attempts to make a new home for herself here with her family whilst also researching social transformations in the local community. The loss of jobs in the mining industry, as well as the complicated relationship between Norwegian natives, foreign immigrants, and tourists all contribute to the city's change of atmosphere whilst the surrounding snowy mountains melt and avalanches threaten the daily existence of the local population. This portrait of the microcosm of an ice town is a raw glimpse into the contemporary globalized world.“Still, such charm carries a risk. Since if everybody came here to enjoy the clarity and space, soon there’d be neither.”  

The protagonist of the film is Pavel, a pensioner who keeps hoarding things in his apartment. Pavel is convinced of the value of his collection although he doesn’t actually know it. The film is a meditation on the issue of hoarding and the need to own things in general. The filmmaker enhances the image with the help of rotoscoping, intensifying the emptiness of the captured space.“I figured out I’m my own worst enemy. To fight your own self is the hardest.” — Pavel, the protagonist

Naoto Matsumara is the only person permanently residing around the Fukushima nuclear power plant where, in 2011, a major nuclear incident occurred. Matsumara decided to stay in this exclusion zone and now devotes his time to taking care of the abandoned animals. This observational documentary is a reflection on the disasters caused by man-made technology and on the environmental crisis and its consequences. The film is part of the We Have to Survive documentary project, which aims to draw attention to the current and future effects of the climate crisis.“That's mankind. They all agree so long as it's comfortable for them. If there are hard times, nobody cooperates. And that's how we'll end up.” (Naoto Matsumara)