Nature’s Whispers

Diego Quinderé de Carvalho’s 0.2 Milligrams of Gold and Andrés Jurado’s Yarokamena invite us to reconsider our relationship with nature, history, and the systems that shape our lives. In conversation, both filmmakers talk about their filmmaking process and the question of activism in art.

In The Summer Movie, nothing much seems to happen. A man, Philippe, meets up with his friend Aurélien and Aurélien’s 9-year-old son Balthazar. They travel around and talk about random things, seemingly without much of a goal. And then they all go their separate ways. Yet despite such a disparate narrative, the film seems rich and rewarding, redolent with an examination of a life lived and the momentary feelings of freedom in lives regimented by the pressures of the modern day.

Animals no longer live in nature; they now exist first and foremost on our screens. While each new internet-based encounter with them still feels as surprising and delightful as ever, the obsessive relationship with animal imagery often remains limited to fulfilling our emotional needs—rarely do we question the underlying motives. Mourad Ben Amor’s Bamssi (2024)—a diary film made alongside a pack of animal protagonists—hints that our fascination may sometimes be less about the animals themselves than about the spontaneity and impulsivity that emerge from their most routine gestures.

Early on in the film, Servais employs the boundless possibilities of animated film to portray a surreal scene: two cranes squabbling over a wooden container. The container drops and breaks. Its content: a pile of rocket bombs. War is the central theme in many of Servais’ films (Chromophobia, Operation X-70, Tank); here, however, it seems to only casually add to the dystopian world. The future has been devoured by war and industry. Literally devoured: a lonely fisherman catches nothing but fish bones. He looks deeply saddened.

Love and respect for an archive cannot mean approaching it so delicately that one refuses to act upon it: every selection, montage, recollection or speculation transforms what it touches. Nor does openness mean withholding commitment. It means committing strongly enough for an encounter to answer back—for an image, voice or vanished life to resist the meaning prepared for it and perhaps alter the form built around it.