Screening Room VI

Eclipse

The films presented here act as the festival’s dark peak. Here, we expose the systems that drive destruction: extraction, industrial spectacle, profit, and the politics that disregard human and planetary wellbeing. From flaring refineries and toxic tailings to polluted waters and the social violence of supply chains, this section asks blunt questions about responsibility, power and consequence. These works call for witness, critique, and the pressing task of pushing against the status quo.

Vidas Irrenovables: Naturaleza o Miseria (trailer)
Non-Renewable Lives: Nature or Misery
Francisco José Vaquero Robustillo

Technologies heralded as climate solutions can, in certain circumstances, mirror the extractive patterns of the very industries they seek to replace. Vaquero Robustillo’s feature documentary – screened in full for the first three days of the festival – takes a close look at the rapid deployment of large-scale renewable-energy projects reshaping rural landscapes and livelihoods across Spain. Through testimony and observational footage, the film raises concerns about the social and ecological consequences of what it presents as poorly planned installations – from the conversion of the landscape to tensions within affected communities – and documents the resistance movements that have emerged in response.

While renewable energy remains essential to the transition, the documentary highlights what the filmmaker calls the risk of “destroying ecosystems, economies and societies.” As he explains, “a lack of planning and poor management by public administrations is seriously endangering the survival of the rural world. Something that was intended to save the environment and revive village life is paradoxically turning into the opposite. Faced with this alarming situation, many people refuse to see their territories die and are giving their lives to stop this situation.”

The Bleeding Tides
Ipshita Bhattacharyya

“Over the years, I have travelled to Sundarbans on several filming assignments and through each of my visits, I have been drawn not only to the landscape but also to the quiet resilience of the women who live there,” Ipshita Bhattacharyya tells us. “We hear a lot about climate change impacts – rising sea levels, frequent cyclones and floods, increasing salinity – but few speak about how it invades the most intimate spaces of life. It was in my conversations with the women there, that I started to witness the deep connection between environmental degradation and women’s health. The stories we found were tender, raw, and urgent and yet, rarely heard. The Bleeding Tides was created from a desire to amplify these voices and make visible what so often goes unseen. My filming process was collaborative and it formed organically as the women embraced me into their daily lives. Many of the women featured in the film shared experiences of vulnerability and stigma, which we had to frame with care and rather than focussing on creating victims, we tried to highlight both struggle and strength. Cinematically, we were guided by the landscape and its own pace. The intention was to create a film that truly resonates their voices and not mine. With The Bleeding Tides, I hope to broaden the discourse on climate justice and create a deeper understanding of how truly intertwined our ecosystems are with our social systems. The climate is indeed in our bodies.”

The Bleeding Tides highlights the entwined crises of climate change and women’s health in the Sundarbans, the cyclone capital of India. Rising salinity, driven by sea-level rise and repeated storm surges, has profound but often overlooked effects on menstrual and reproductive health. Women face growing risks due to unsafe water (which many must spend hours each day in), inadequate sanitation, limited healthcare, and shrinking livelihood options. The film shows how these combined pressures have produced a public health crisis, with climate impacts directly affecting women’s health, work, and daily survival. The film definitively states menstrual health is not a private burden but a public health concern; ensuring gender-responsive adaptation to climate change is crucial.

Malentendu
Camille Martel

Malentendu exposes the obstacle course of tourist boats and paparazzi that critically endangered beluga whales must navigate in the St. Lawrence River, Quebec. The film explores how misunderstandings arise and how sound is central to these “sea canaries,” guiding them to navigate, feed, and maintain social bonds. Inspired by direct cinema pioneer Pierre Perreault, Malentendu is, above all, an immersive auditory journey into a largely invisible world, revealing how human interference threaten the lives of these vulnerable animals.

Liquid Spine, Augusta
Katie Pustizzi

Liquid Spine, Augusta uses dance to draw attention to the environmental and health crises of Sicily’s “Black Triangle” (or Triangolo Morto), where coastal and air pollution from industrial activity is harming ecosystems and the local community alike.

Flotacija
Eluned Zoe Aiano, Alesandra Tatić

Through immersive journalism, Flotacija, by Eluned Zoë Aiano & Alesandra Tatić, spotlights a damaging industrial practice. Set in Majdanpek, Eastern Serbia, the film follows the Marković family – miners and dragon hunters – as industrial processes turn place into profit and how that transformation can erase both landscape and ways of life.

The film centres on flotation (Serbian: flotacija), the common method used to separate valuable minerals from crushed ore. The waste this process produces is huge and enduring. Poorly managed, it can pollute rivers, seep into groundwater, and contaminate soil. Around Majdanpek people have raised concerns about water quality, dust and the health of local land, and the film shows how these real, everyday harms sit beside stories of loss, resistance and survival.

Spa Sybarite
Joshua Dawson

“The World health Organisation states that: ‘Although it is unequivocal that climate change affects human health, it remains challenging to accurately estimate the scale and impact of many climate-sensitive health risks. In the short- to medium-term, the health impacts of climate change will be determined mainly by the vulnerability of populations, their resilience to the current rate of climate change, and the extent and pace of adaptation.’

But what happens in the long term, when adapting to climate change becomes harder and our bodies can no longer withstand the growing hostility of the environment?

Capitalism functions as designed when powerful actors profit from human distress by offering market-based fixes to the very social problems it creates – focusing on adapting to the consequences of climate change rather than addressing its root causes.

With the wellness industry now being ‘one of the world’s fastest, most resilient markets,’ outranking the pharmaceutical industry several times over, it’s easy to see wellness, not healthcare, becoming the clear and present winners of the climate change business providing ‘coping with climate-anxiety’ an emerging market to capitalise off of. The International Finance Corporation posits out that the Climate Investment Opportunities will total $23 Trillion in Emerging Markets by 2030.

When you have a total addressable market of the entire planet, the climate crisis provides a perfect excuse to make every business a climate business. Climate spas are an example of a near-future venture that weaponises the declining health of the planet to profit from its impact on the body.”

Dawson has made three other short films with related themes: In Cáustico, it is the politics of water privatisation; in Loa’s Promise, the ecological and human impacts of unregulated resource extraction; and in Denervation, the threats posed by counterfeiting in an unscrupulous pharmaceutical industry. Concern with the environment and health underlie everything.

Accursed Effigy
Amirmahdi Kalantari & Abraham Paul Velázquez Navarro

Accursed Effigy is a flash-forward; an imaginary future vision. The film ventures into the haunting remnants of humanity, the silent witness of its collective collapse, and the ethereal rebirth of nature in the absence of mankind.

A Burning Hope
Collin Bradford