Navigating the Anthropocene Through a Cinematic Lens Main Menu

On-location blame

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This section focuses on African eco-documentaries, particularly one called Anger in the Wind and directed by Amina Weira. An alternative narrative is proposed here through the local perspective offered, one of a community long ignored by official narratives. The story of the Anthropocene is refilmed through a local and personal perspective, which brings to light experiences previously shadowed by impersonal and global. I hope this section can allow you to navigate our epoch with new eyes and a more situated perspective.

Anger in the Wind:
African ecosystems have become sites for violent and irreversible destruction and exploitation due to global capitalism. Colonialism turned African landscapes and nature into consumable and exploitable spaces.
The movie exposes such issues. It is set in northern Niger in Arlit, the hometown of the filmmaker. It uncovers the environmental issues posed by colonial foreign companies that extracted uranium in this region. Amina Weira turns to her father, who recalls his 35 years as a mineworker and the perils he and his coworkers faced during that time. This film is highly intimate, built on conversation, and focuses on the locality of Arlit.
This documentary seems to be only for those directly impacted by the slow violence of uranium extraction, to show the solidarity amongst them. A “global threat” is not revealed here, on the contrary, what is revealed is how the local is ignored "in relation to the global" (Tcheuyap 232).  
Because its subjects do not require a global awareness due to their proximity to the issue, the film’s goal is not to raise one amongst the spectators. For a global north and Western spectator, their awareness reveals itself indirectly: through their lack of understanding towards the local and Weira’s personal story (Tcheuyap 233).

Personal and local documentaries seem to succeed in accurately and precisely directing blame. The Anthropocene’s history is not regrouped in a two-hour, action-packed and seemingly accurate film, but is explored through partial, situated experiences that together compose its complexity.

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  1. Repairing and Refilming Aurore Landman

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