Some of you may remember the Edward Burtynsky photography exhibition we visited whilst in Berlin and 'Manufactured Landscapes' film. This is the third film in the trilogy.
‘A cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is feature documentary film, four years in the making, from the multiple-award winning team of Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky.
Third in a trilogy that includes Manufactured Landscapes (2006) and Watermark (2013), the film follows the research of an international body of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group who, after nearly ten years of research, are arguing that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch in the mid-twentieth century because of profound and lasting human changes to the earth.
From concrete seawalls in China that now cover 60 percent of the mainland coast, to the biggest terrestrial machines ever built in Germany, to psychedelic potash mines in Russia’s Ural Mountains, to metal festivals in the closed city of Norilsk, to the devastated Great Barrier Reef in Australia and surreal lithium evaporation ponds in the Atacama desert, the film-makers have traversed the globe to document evidence and experience of human planetary domination.
At the intersection of art and science, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch witnesses a critical moment in geological history — bringing a provocative and unforgettable experience of our species’ breadth and impact. Narrated by Alicia Vikander.
Screening at Wateshed, Bristol, October 14th 2019 from 18:00
A panel after the showing on 14 October explores what climate change in the Anthropocene means for us and especially for cities in the week of Festival of the Future City.
This film is part of Festival of the Future City – an initiative of Festival of Ideas. Festival of the Future City takes place every two years in Bristol celebrating and debating the future of cities with talks, walks, debates, arts projects and new books. The 2019 Festival of the Future City includes classic utopian films about cities; cities in silent cinema; documentaries on New Towns, democracy, the housing crisis and the anthropocene in the series: Cities, Future Cities and Film. We are grateful to BFI for their support for this programme.’