In the wake of the unprecedented pandemic, we plunge headfirst into the toxic ooze of the "Anthropocene", an epochal description of the last two hundred and fifty years, during which mankind has disrupted the climate and despoiled every last inch of Earth’s natural landscape.
Despite historical outliers - such as Japan’s Godzilla films - ecological horror films only really began to hit home in the 1970s. With the rise of environmental activism, an increasing number of films adopted the theme of nature’s revenge against man’s abuse of the ecosystem. The so-called "Nature Strikes Back" and "Animal Attack" films tackled the environmental fears of the era by way of rampaging wildlife, poisonous outbreaks and natural catastrophes.
After the first great eco-horror film boom of the 1970s, it wasn’t until the turn of the century that the genre made its mainstream comeback via blockbuster hits like The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and other special effects extravaganzas. The genre has evolved to reflect our own guilt and fear about the damage we have inflicted on nature, and the consequences we are already suffering. Even revenge from the animal kingdom seems muted next to the terrifying realisation that man is the deadliest animal of all.
Our programme includes no less than thirty films, divided between Cinema Nova and Cinematek. From an out-of-control climate (The Last Winter), retribution from the animal world (Long Weekend) and plagues of arthropods (Kingdom of the Spiders, Phase IV) to pandemics (The Andromeda Strain), pollution (Frogs) and overpopulation (Soylent Green), it will be a dark trip through cinematic depictions of climate fear, at the point where the dystopian sci-fi of the first ecological genre films of the 1970s is increasingly becoming a dangerous and tangible reality.
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