anthropcene: the human epoch + a short film about ice…

I went to the Watershed for the first time in 18 months (I know)!
The first film (2018, directed by Nicholas de Pencier, Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky) focused on how human activities have made significant lasting and potentially irreversible changes to the Earth… 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. From the harsh industrial landscapes of Siberia, to the towering white mountains of marble in Carrara, Italy, to the uneven plastic peaks of Dandora Landfill in Kenya, watch the aggressive extraction of the planet’s resources in astonishing scale and devastating beauty. Six continents and stunning (and sometimes quite chilling) images chronicling the catastrophic path travelled by our species over the last century.
Following 10 years of research, the Anthropocene Working Group now argue that we are now in a new geologic phase (the Anthropocene epoch) - a time when humans now change the Earth (in significant lasting and potentially irreversible ways) more than all the planet’s natural processes combined.
My gut feeling was that perhaps the film could have been broken down somewhat differently in terms of subject matter/’chapters’ but, nevertheless, it’s an impressive and powerful film.
The other film (directed by Hannah+Felix’s friend Adam Laity) was rather lovely – beautiful (and frequently devastating) images of fragile landscapes set alongside poetry and literary extracts.
PS: I have to say that I’d been feeling somewhat apprehensive about returning to my regular cinema venue as we begin to emerge from the pandemic (fingers crossed). The Watershed people had put in place a number of sensible safety measures... and these all worked well – apart from the people in the audience who weren’t wearing face-masks (“We will continue to expect everyone to wear a face covering whilst in the cinemas”). There were only some 25 people in the audience but at least half-a-dozen were mask-less. It made me feel very uncomfortable… and, yes, a bit vulnerable.