Shorts: Environmental Rupture

[SENVI]

Program

The filmmakers in this program address issues of war, the exploration of space, and the depletion of our natural resources to examine the devastating effect of human intervention upon our global environment. In 200000 Phantoms, filmmaker Jean Gabriel Periot assembles a collage of postcards to highlight the havoc wrought by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In 2007 Before the Tracks Are Lost on the Wind, director Renate Günter-Greene's tracking camera surveys remnants of the Dusseldorf train station where Jews were deported to concentration camps. In both films, voiceover narration invokes memory as a way to transcend apocalyptic devastation. In Launch, Brian Doyle intermingles, in lyrical fashion, abandoned homes and buildings with changing weather patterns surrounding a rocket launch. In Polar, Scott Nyerges provides an abstract rendition of the melting of the polar ice caps, while in Number One, Leighton Pierce create a digital video collage of trees. rocks, water, and fire to underscore the importance the natural elements play upon our human psyche.

– Jon Gartenberg