The concept of the forests as a source of life cannot be isolated from the integrity of nature that corresponds to the integrity of the physical body and cultural personality of local and indigenous peoples. As a source of life, the forests need to be understood in accordance with the natural elements that support life, such as the earth, water, trees and wildlife, air, sun, sounds or language. Since ancient times, undisturbed patches of vegetation have been dedicated to folk spirits. In this August issue, we pay tribute to these very same spirits of the forests that have protected our bioreserves and have awoken at times abruptly to impending fires, loss of biodiversity and human-induced climate change.
Curated by Alexis Gambis
Biosemiotic Borneo – a more explicitly sonic than visual piece of art – lingers around a giant Banyan tree that stands in the Meratus Mountains in Southeast Borneo. Drawing attention to the semiotic processes of world-making in nature, the audio-visual work explores how artists and
Bird men suffer mysterious falls in the search of the place where the sun rises. Through episodes in which the line between reality and fantasy fades, these characters travel both the celestial and terrestrial with a single objective: dying to generate life. The proximity to the atmosphere poses as
"In Minh Quý Trương's striking second feature, a man living on Mars in the year 2045 examines footage brought back from his encounters with an indigenous community in the jungles of Vietnam. As he experiments, his thoughts drift from matters of identity, aesthetics, and the politics of imagem
On the slopes of the Navarrese Pyrenees, the construction of the Itoiz dam in the 1990s flooded seven villages and three nature reserves. A strip of bare land, 592 metres above sea level, today marks a dividing line within the landscape of the valley. Below that level, the water; above it, life goes
The forest is at rest. But the horror comes closer. Merciless and brutal the machine takes hold of its first victim, grabs it and shreds it within seconds. "brutal order" shows how a harvester "butchers" trees immediately.
The cane and bamboo suspension bridges that span the rivers of the Siang valley are the distinctive mark of the Adi tribe, who live amidst the forested hills of Arunachal Pradesh, in India's north-east. In the Siang valley, work in the fields is done by the end of February. The monsoon isn't due for
Scenes of the dance of life and death in the lush tropical nature as it is lived day by day, year by year, by the magical creatures that inhabit the wilderness of our dreams.
Few men, sent onto the Moon to vegetalize it, are waiting for the arrival of the Earthlings. In the middle of the forest they grew, they talk about their past lives on Earth and the world in which they would like to live in. But who are these men? Are they real? Have they been forgotten?
Nearly all of Ethiopia's old-growth forests have disappeared. This film tells the story of Ethiopia's church forests—pockets of lush biodiversity that surround hundreds of churches—and the efforts to protect them.
In this layered short film, filmmaker Janine Windolph takes her young sons fishing with their kokum (grandmother), a residential school survivor who retains a deep knowledge and memory of the land. The act of reconnecting with their homeland is a cultural and familial healing journey for the boys, w
I shot a film through one year in the virgin forest Aokigahara Jukai on the bottom of Mount Fuji. Walking in the ocean of trees all alone, I sometimes got the feeling of being watched. At those moments, I put my camera into the direction of the "watcher." It's like I wasn't shooting the ocean of tre
Geneticist and environmentalist David Suzuki celebrates the pleasure of knowing we humans are squishy organic material in an inter-related web of life—and we'd better not forget that! An invitation to go out and play and learn from the real world.
A group of armed men are wandering in the jungle, tracking themselves one another. Some move in pairs, some move alone, some wear military uniforms and some don´t. Like in any sort of game, rivalries and internal conflicts will not take long to emerge, drawing a line between the strong and the
The city spreads and devours the jungle. At the same time, the city's ruins host another jungle, a veritable internal memory. The question of the frontier arises. What delimits one space from the other?
Experiencing the enchanting life in the forests of Central India through the eyes of children and then there's the stark reality of the forest fires. Filmed in and around the dry-deciduous forests of Barjhai Ghat in Central India, Jaadui Jungle (Magical Forest) experiences the enchanting life in the
In his new feature documentary Borealis , acclaimed director Kevin McMahon ( Waterlife ) travels deep into the heart of the boreal forest to explore the chorus of life in Canada's iconic wilderness. How do trees move, communicate and survive the destructive forces of fire, insects, and human encroac
Deforest is an art/science project that combines environmental critique with material enquiry. In this project, sulphuric acid – a highly corrosive acid that burns to the touch – is used to dissolve photographs of old growth rainforest from subtropical Queensland. Deforestation is one of
People living in Turkey`s eastern Black Sea region, along with their traditions, unique lifestyle and uncommonly practical solutions for life, mostly take us into either deep thinking or hilarious laughter. Achieving the impossible requires an extraordinary self-transcending intelligence. Wit and st
This animated short tells the story of Maq, a Mi'kmaq boy who realizes his potential with the help of inconspicuous mentors. When an elder in the community offers him a small piece of pipestone, Maq carves a little person out of it. Proud of his work, the boy wants to impress his grandfather and jou
Botanist Julio Betancur and his disciple, young Cristian Castro, return to Colombia's tropical forests to explore once again their passion for nature. Through the lens of Director Guillermo Quintero, former student of Julio, we will travel in the middle of a delirious expedition that will lead us to
Filmmaker/activist Melaw Nakehk'o has spent the pandemic with her family at a remote land camp in the Northwest Territories, "getting wood, listening to the wind, staying warm and dry, and watching the sun move across the sky." In documenting camp life—activities like making fish leather and s
Diane Obomsawin's whimsical animated short follows medicine man Walk-in-the-forest on a walk in the woods that leads to the discovery of an intriguing secret world.
The Oldest Living Things in the World is an epic journey through time and space. Over the past decade, artist Rachel Sussman has researched, worked with biologists, and traveled the world to photograph continuously living organisms that are 2,000 years old and older.
We distinguish sometimes sounds that are part of a distant landscape, before we ever have conscious of its existence. Here, Livity personifies the jungle of Laos. The music video brings us into a mysterious world, and calls to the reverie and magic that the jungle inhabits. To the metronome pulses,
This film connects the past and the present through a love story inspired by Mesoamerican mythology and testimonials from people who live in the Mayan rainforest. A story in Nahuatl and a ritual song accompanies the journey through the interior of ancient trees to the universe.
The story of A journey into Earth Otherwise Said is inspired from the first accounts of the natural and ethnographic explorations in America by the Conquistadors, the missionaries and scientists. The film is entirely shot in the Tropical Greenhouse of Lille, a building constructed in 1970 by Jean-Pi
To the Unknown is a short documentary film. The flora and fauna of Madagascar fascinate scientists from all over the world. Some spend their entire lives exploring the island. This visually captivating documentary follows several researchers during their work in the inhospitable conditions of the ra
Life in the rain forest is interrupted when the intruders arrive to destroy it. Unaware that one of their own has betrayed them, the villagers are unable to protect it until an unexpected ally uses her powers to help them. SHADOWS: Saving the Rain Forest is a contemporary tale of magical realism abo
A wildlife sound recordist is on the trail of an undocumented animal when she disappears in the forests of Western Ghats. The recorder and microphone become her sole companions. She relies on them to lead her way back to civilization.
A boy learns about the meaning of death from his grandmother when the butterflies carrying the souls of the dead arrive to his hometown in Michoacan, Mexico.
"'Forêt d'expérimentation' – the experimental forest, the name of a place, a title, and a statement of intent. The first step into this forest is represented as a black-and-white silhouette, branches against a background of clouds moving rapidly across the sky, with a modulating s
Aequador is an alternative history built as a travel account without words: an equatorial dystopia evoking the excesses of a progressist and modernist dream in Latin America during the twentieth century. We imagined a bygone era where an extremist ideology would tried to conquer the Amazon territory
Philosopher Zhuang Zi once dreamt he was a butterfly. This pleasant daydream tells this old story from a new perspective. Modern butterflies apparently dream in VR. Nature, technology and spirituality seamlessly meld when a monk and a child both embrace modern technology their own way.
An impending storm is announced through the public speakers of a tropical city in "Echo Chamber"
Two technicians set up cameras in a forest to capture animal activity at night. A woman moved away from the forest a long time ago. She yearns for her late husband and the forest.
Here is a little plant that starts its life high up in the tree tops, where it can find more light than the dark understory of the rainforest. As it grows though, soon getting enough water becomes limiting factor, and the plant will drop a shoot to the ground.
In the forest of the Catholic Monastery of Admont in Austria a fir tree is felled and processed into planks of wood. By train, truck, boat and finally by hand, the stack is transported to a mysterious destination right in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. The wooden planks' trajectory correspon
Fatouh, the guardian of the Mangroves, has not been seen for some time. Some say he left after disputes with local tribes while others claim that it was due to increasing destruction and pollution of these ecosystems in the Arabian Gulf.