Series Site
February 2–February 23, 2025
Climate change is here. It is a fact of daily life. The Industrial Revolution and ensuing turn-of-the-twentieth-century boom of contemporary existence–defining invention (cars, planes, plastics, you name it) were the starting point of a crisis that is rapidly pushing our global ecosystem toward collapse. There are root causes everywhere you look, fingers to be pointed in blame. What this film series aims to do is highlight recent work ambitious enough to reckon with the history and ideas that brought us here, stare into the current crisis, and boldly explore ways forward. These documentaries do not pretend to address climate change as a whole, but instead approach their multifaceted subjects with a clear-eyed understanding of the facts on the ground and in the atmosphere.
Each of the four movies draws on varying documentary techniques. The White House Effect utilizes archival footage to capture the cataclysmic transition period when the human impact on rising global temperatures shifted from a factual scientific consensus to just another political wedge issue. Nocturnes patiently revels in the beauty of the environment, while researchers contemplate its demise. Plastic People is investigative activist cinema, engaging scientists on the bleeding edge of study. The Battle for Laikipia is a sprawling documentary Western, its subjects spurred into conflict over land scarred by drought and colonization.
The series is presented in collaboration with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Each screening will be accompanied by a post-screening discussion, some with the filmmakers, some drawing from the expertise of UC Berkeley faculty and researchers.
—Jeff Griffith-Perham, Film Exhibition Curatorial Associate