Two Oscar-nominated documentaries expose the destruction of planet Earth

While the ecological fable of james cameron, Avatar: the path of water challenge the Oscar for best picture, several nominees in the documentary category compete with chronicles of real threats to our planet.

From the polluted skies of Delhi to the melting sea ice in Siberia, anything that breathes there Grounding they tackle complex local histories to draw global attention to the destruction of nature by human action. Brothers Maxim Arbugaev there Evgenia Arbugaeva They are the first Yakut Indigenous nominees for an Oscar. Compete with your short film Grounding, about a scientist in Siberia recording the disastrous impact of climate change on walrus populations.

Grounding It begins with stunning images of the desolate, windswept Arctic coast. the marine biologist Maxim Chakilev He waits patiently in his hut for the arrival of migrating walruses. Suddenly, some 100,000 specimens of these huge mammals appear outside the hut, piled up on the beach. It is a bewitching spectacle that hides a natural disaster: the agglomeration, the result of the melting of the pack ice, is dangerous and has deadly consequences.

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“Our hope is to join the chorus of scientists and artists around the world and contribute to the debate about the fate of our planet,” he said. Arbugaeva. The brothers explained that their nomination for Oscar this was the cause of a great celebration in his distant homeland. The makers of the short film plan to bring the reclusive marine biologist to the glamorous ceremony in Los Angeles this Sunday.

For them, bringing public attention to their ancestral region is key to showing the world how climate change is killing humans and animals, in very different ways, across the planet. “We have access to this crucial area of ​​the Arctic,” he noted. Arbugaeva adding: “I think it is very important to talk about the native land. The stories we see are not superficial. It takes years and years to get there and understand the area.

as if nothing

Filmed in the capital of India, anything that breathesof Shaunak Sen, also discusses how animal behavior has been altered by human action. The film follows three men who have dedicated their lives to running a self-funded clinic, caring for some of the hundreds of birds that fall daily from the polluted skies of delhi.

Every day, injured kites are transported to his basement. “Hundreds of birds fall from the sky every day. What impresses me is that people act as if nothing had happened,” one of the men told his wife. Birds are also injured by the strings of kites that people fly.

The men tell how the birds learned to feed on rubbish, pick up cigarette butts to use as vermin repellents and sing seemingly louder to communicate amid noisy city traffic. Sen commented that he chose these characters to encourage audiences to “consider the entangled relationship between human and non-human life”.

It is not enough

For Sen, the recent production of environment-based parts “is not enough”. “There should be a lot more, given the attention the state of the planet requires,” he said. He thinks filmmakers need to work on “more sophisticated stories that make you think about the planet” instead of just focusing on “unhappiness and sadness and despair”.

His film opens with a dark shot of mountains of trash, slowly revealing the wildlife that has learned to survive in the dump. An approach contrary to that of the beginning of Groundingin which the beauty of nature is first shown without human intervention to gradually reflect the destruction caused by man.

One of the most challenging scenes in the short film shows a baby walrus clinging to the body of its dead mother, before jumping to shore to try and swim in the ocean. The tragic scenes on the beach took their toll emotionally and professionally. “My hands were shaking because I was crying, or I felt so emotional that I couldn’t keep the camera steady,” Arbugaeva recalled, adding, “Some of the material couldn’t be used, even crucial moments, but it was so hard.”

“When people tell stories about their land, it’s a very personal process. You speak from your own heart and that of your community which is breaking,” Arbugaeva concluded.

Source: AFP

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