The world is ending. The ice caps are melting, global weather patterns have gone full-blown chaotic, the planet has been celebrating the “Hottest Year in Recorded History” for more than a decade straight, plant and animal extinctions are happening faster than we can keep up with, and the ocean, the greatest giver of life that our planet has ever known, is turning into a cauldron of life-destroying, acidic water. And while the United States’ GOP still tries to deny this terrifying, man-made situation, documentary filmmakers the world over have not.
This year’s festival features three such films in the Social Justice sidebar, all of which work to illuminate the unfolding climate-change catastrophe in new ways while also sowing seeds of hope in the hearts and minds of viewers. These films aren’t all doom and gloom, folks. Not even close.
The first, narrated by Santa Barbara’s own Jeff Bridges, is Living in the Future’s Past. Directed by Susan Kucera, Living is not like any environmental documentary you have seen. Certainly, it is visually arresting, but it is the general approach of the film that sets it apart. It takes on climate change from the perspective of human behavior, our psychology, and our big-picture obsession with energy. It is a bit philosophic and stoned-seeming at times, but the end result is a much deeper-thinking enviro-doc about evolution, entropy, and ecology. Looking to open a mind that is currently closed? This film has some answers.
