Olhe bem as montanhas

(Ana Vaz, Brazil/France, 2018)

“Look closely at the mountains” – this is the slogan that Brazilian artist Manfredo de Souza Neto once coined to protest rampant mineral extraction in Minas Gerais.

Ana Vaz – an increasingly celebrated film artist on the international circuit – creates a comparison, via audiovisual montage, of this ongoing, dire Brazilian situation with a different outcome in Nord-Pas-de-Calais in France.

There, such extraction has ceased and – in a surprising result – emerging forms of biodiversity (bats, spiders, flowers) emerge. They are patiently caught, measured and catalogued.

Plunging us into obscurities of both sound and vision, Vaz offers an ambiguous, immersive, 30-minute report on these troubling yet poetic technological mutations of nature and life.

© Adrian Martin September 2018