Notes from the Anthropocene – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

A Film, Reclaimed

• The ecologic crisis is a political, economic, and social crisis. It is also a cinema crisis that has significantly affected the Anthropocene. A Film, Reclaimed is a conversation, a short video essay that touches upon the relationship between cinema and its dialogue with people's attitudes towards their environment.
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The Sailor

• An artificial language, Na'vi, was created specifically for the needs of James Cameron’s film Avatar; it was supposed to be easy for the actors, while not resembling any earthly language. In The Sailor, it is in Na'vi that the off-screen voice tells the story of a sailor who hits a desert island, playing with the tension between what we hear and understand, as well as what we see.       
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Notes from the Anthropocene

• Shot on a 16mm tape, the film looks at our time through the cultural history of dinosaurs. Nowadays, the icon of the dinosaur shifts between narratives of extinction and human exceptionalism and power. The materiality of the dinosaur, whether fossil or plastic toy, has, through popular culture, become entrenched in the imagery of oil extraction and fossil fuel production. However, dinosaurs remind us that human domination over the Earth is not inherent and obvious – that they reigned here before us.
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Oil Gobblers

• The eponymous oil gobblers are a new species of creature inhabiting post-industrial mounds in the Czech Republic. They feed on oil and breathe exhaust fumes. The short mockumentary – Svěrák’s graduation film – is about the expedition of scientists studying these animals. At the time of its creation, it was an ecological satire on industrial pollution. Now, however, you can start taking it rather more seriously – maybe nature has no other choice but to adapt to the conditions created by man, conditions in which he himself will not be able to live. Will pollution become a new opportunity for fauna and flora?