Where the Green Ants Dream

Director: Werner Herzog
Screenwriters: Werner Herzog

Institute History

  • 1985 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Werner Herzog has returned from the Australian outback with this vivid and stylized chronicle of the clash of old and new cultures. On a desolate stretch of central Australia, a giant uranium mining company is threatening the sacred Aboriginal tribal grounds, holy lands where it’s believed that the green ants gather to dream. The Aborigines fear that if their 40,000 year old legend is desecrated disaster will follow. The company’s ostensible willingness to cooperate, attempts at bribery, intimidation and confrontation, and finally blasting bring the matter to a head. The Australian Supreme Court becomes the forum where the legend of the Aborigines must clash with English Law. Herzog has said: “It isn’t simply an environmentalist film. We did not what to be like anthropological researchers, strictly following their rules. I wanted to show legends and mythology that come closer to thinking and way of life of the Aborigines.”

Screening Details

Credits

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