Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

Institute History

  • 2019 Sundance Film Festival

Description

The third film in a three-part collaboration between renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky and award-winning filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch premiered to great acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The trilogy’s first installment, Manufactured Landscapes, mesmerized audiences at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

The Anthropocene Working Group is composed of an international team of scientists who have spent nearly a decade researching the serious and lasting geological impact caused to our planet by humankind. From the devastated Great Barrier Reef in Australia, to the concrete seawalls that cover 60 percent of mainland China’s coast, to the biggest terrestrial machines ever built in Germany, to psychedelic potash mines in Russia’s Ural Mountains, to surreal lithium evaporation ponds in the Atacama Desert, the crew travels to six continents and twenty different countries to capture stunning images chronicling the catastrophic path traveled by our species over the last century.

Four years in the making, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch serves as a disturbing call to action, forcing us to rethink the relationship we have with our global habitat.

— A.M.

Screening Details

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