Issue

Summer Tropism

June 2020

Tropism is the tendency of an organism to orient towards ​an external stimulus. Phototropism is most familiar: the natural movement and growth of plants towards light. As, for the northern hemisphere, the weather warms and the sun's energy strengthens for summer, we may have a lot in common with our vegetable neighbors, a shared yearning to be out in the sun. Pandemic-allowing, we hope to soon be able to bask freely in its glow once again. Until then, here are a selection of films celebrating solar rays and surging plant growth

Other Voices

FILM USA 2013
Sarah Enid Hagey

Part science and part fiction, Other Voices is an experimental documentary about the enigmatic life of plants and the people who love them. We meet Mileece, a sound artist who claims to have given her plants a "voice" through a process of amplifying the electrical current produced in plant leaves an

Exchange (2015)

FILM USA 2015
Danielle Parsons Ravi Sheth

Exchange is a visual and informative illustration of air as the common bond between photosynthetic and respiratory organisms. The exchange of gases in the air -- carbon dioxide for oxygen, and oxygen for carbon dioxide -- between plants and animals is the most fundamental symbiosis on the planet.

Planet Z

FILM France 2012
Momoko Seto

Somewhere in the Universe, on the PLANET Z, a miracle happens. A water jet springs up and gives birth to a new life: plants. A desert planet becomes a green planet. Different species cohabit, including liquid and sticky mushrooms. But little by little, the mushrooms invade the green land and destroy

Happy Tree (2014)

FILM USA 2014
Jonathan Minard Heather Berlin

Happy Tree is a short film made for the 7th Annual Imagine Science Film Festival (themed around TIME) 48 Hour Competition and won first prize. The film features Mari in the lead role as Dr. Eleanor Drew and was directed by Jonathan Minard. The script was based on a scientific paper by neuroscientist

Sequence Sago

FILM United States, Indonesia 2019
Daniel Grossman Rebecca Grossman

In Indonesia, multinational corporations have drained millions of acres of swamps and converted them to industrial plantations of oil palm and acacia. Researchers are looking for alternative crops that can be grown in wet conditions, without draining. They're touting, among other possible candidates

Solar Walk

FILM Denmark 2018
Reka Bucsi

Solar Walk shows the journey of individuals and their creations on through time and space. Any meaning of action is only existent from the perspective of the individual, but never mandatory when looking at it from the perspective of a solar system. It's about the melancholy of accepting chaos as bea

Attraction

FILM UK 2017
Emily Scaife

Urges in the undergrowth, erupting fungal fantasies, bursting botanicals; the dust and desires of a tiny alternative universe. A mixed media, experimental animation imagining attraction and pleasure in insects, and the seduction methods of the plants and fungi that beckon.

Out of Sight (2018)

FILM Canada 2018
Su Rynard

Ever wonder what the world might look like beyond the visible light spectrum? Cameras can capture UV and infrared light beyond the ability of the human eye, revealing the secrets of the cosmos and our own macro universe. With amazing visuals and illuminating science "Out of Sight" explores the bound

Orbit

FILM United States 2019
Tess Martin

Spinning drawings guide us along the flow of energy through our planet, and let us ponder our place in the natural cycle.

My Moon

FILM USA 2019
Eusong Lee

My Moon is an eight minute 2D animated short film, about the relationship between three celestial bodies, the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon. The story revolves around the sad nature of the way they have to co-exist, as the Earth needs both emotional and practical values from both the Sun and Moon. Pr

Helios

FILM USA 2018
Eric Stewart

Time-lapses of cacti and succulent over the course of a year. Environmental data drives the tone and filtration of the sounds while the rising and setting of the sun illuminates the growth of plants moving in and out phase with one another.

Sunstone

FILM Portugal, France 2018
Filipa César Louis Henderson

Sunstone tracks Fresnel lenses from their site of production to their exhibition in a museum of lighthouses and navigational devices. It also examines the diverse social contexts in which optics are implicated, contrasting the system of triangular trade that followed the first European arrivals in t

Mosavali (The Harvest)

FILM Georgia 2019
Misho Antadze

Initially conceived as a project to explore the cryptocurrency gold rush in the rural region of Kakheti in Georgia, this strictly observational essay proved to be equally as much an exploration of the relationship between nature, technology, and the changing landscape.

Blue Suns

FILM Canada 2010
Chloé Leriche

A walk in the woods become a metaphoric journey in Chloé Leriche's short film. As a solitary figure moves through the forest, the texture of stone, the movement of water, all the infinite pageantry of the natural world is captured in its richness and detail. With the help of an orchestrated s

Under the Weather

FILM Canada 1997
Tali

This animated short follows a group of happy vacationers sunbathing... under cloudy skies. Despite the weather, they look cheerful, eating ice cream and hot dogs, frolicking in the sand. When the sun finally breaks through the clouds, everyone deserts the beach. The film presents a fanciful yet awkw

The Plant

FILM Canada 1983
Thomas Vamos

This short fiction has much to say about kindness, although without any dialogue. In a combination of live action and animation, we are introduced to a man who discovers a small plant hidden under the snow and takes it inside his house. The plant responds to his loving care with rather startling ent

Ligne Verte (The Green Line)

FILM France 2005
Laurent Maeschal

A panning shot follows a wallpainting. This ttrompe l'oeil' painting actually represents the landscape beyond the wall. Slowly it turns to life the concrete begins to tremble as if the plants were growing inside it. This part of the wall has been recently built in Jerusalem. The viewer does not know

Spring

FILM USA 2017
Jamie Scott

Spring is a time-lapse film shot in New York over the course of 3 years. For more info, contact : INVISIBLEJAM@gmail.com

Night Garden

FILM Canada 2019
Kyath Battie

This personal short film uses a series of telephone conversations with the filmmaker's mother as she tries to reconcile facing cancer for a fourth time. Low-fi video filmed at night captures her mothers bond to her home, shaping the tension and isolation of living life with a terminal illness. Noctu

37/38 Tree Again

FILM Germany 1978
Kurt Kren

At the centre are takes which do not change – a tree in a field in Vermont, U.S.A. Since the film was shot over a period of fifty days, the single frame shots create a storm of picturesHans Scheugl. "Tree again became one of Kren´s most beautiful works - although it is difficult to singl

To Taste the Ground

FILM Canada 2014
Shannon Harris

To Taste the Ground is a lyrical documentary that viscerally moves through the seasonal life cycle of a small organic farm in British Columbia, Canada. The remote farm exists off grid in the Fraser Canyon with solar power and water that flows from the surrounding mountains. The relationship between