The Vanishing

A short experimental art film whose theme is the extinction and disappearance of bird species. The film is not a documentary, but a metaphorical imagining of the vanishing of birds worldwide. It opens with swirling clouds and a white sun rising over a stark mountain landscape; the sky blackens, then we see treetops, clouds behind, and two suns, a black one rising and a golden one setting. Next, a lightning storm, and small birds twittering and flying in tree branches as the sun moves past. All of this is somewhat abstract; viewers can identify these things but they are all strange-looking and somewhat eerie - the mood is one of disquiet and slight anxiousness. The film ends in a void, with fire and smoke drifting across the screen.

"Climate change is this generation’s calamity, and it is similar to the nuclear threat that nurtured the baby boomers in that it promises a different sort of death from the petty disasters of war, famine, and pestilence—it promises near-total species collapse. The past swept away along with the future. The deletion of collective memory. This is an existential threat more profound than anything humanity has had to reckon with before except in the throes of ecstatic religious millenarianism." (Laura Penny)