623 – Contagion (2011)

Contagion is a 2011 U.S. medical thriller-disaster film directed by Steven Soderbergh. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, and Jennifer Ehle. The plot of Contagion documents the spread of a virus transmitted by fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and finally the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread. To follow several interacting plot lines, the film makes use of the multi-narrative “hyperlink cinema” style, popularized in several of Soderbergh’s films.

H1N1

Steven Soderbergh was motivated to make an “ultra-realistic” film about the public health and scientific response to a pandemic. The movie touches on a variety of themes, including the factors which drive mass panic and collapse of social order, the scientific process for characterizing and containing a novel pathogen, balancing personal motives against professional responsibilities and rules in the face of an existential threat, the limitations and consequences of public health responses, and the pervasiveness of interpersonal connections which can serve as vectors to spread disease. Soderbergh acknowledged the salience of these post-apocalyptic themes is heightened by reactions to the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. The movie was intended to realistically convey the “intense” and “unnerving” social and scientific reactions to a pandemic. The recent real-life epidemics such as the 2003 SARS epidemic and the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1) have been inspirations and influences in the film. The chain of contagion involving bats and pigs is reminiscent of the trail of the Nipah virus (which infects cells in the respiratory and nervous systems, the same cells as the virus in the movie) that originated in Malaysia in 1997, which similarly involved the disturbance of a bat colony by deforestation. (read more – themes – wiki)

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Macau

0621 – The Book of Eli (2010)

spacetime coordinates: 2043 Pacific Coast / San Francisco Bay Area

The Book of Eli is a 2010 American post-apocalyptic neo-Western action film directed by the Hughes brothers, written by Gary Whitta, and starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beals and  Tom Waits. The story revolves around Eli, a nomad in a post-apocalyptic world, who is told by a voice to deliver his copy of a mysterious book to a safe location on the West Coast of the United States. The history of the post-war world is explained along the way, as is the importance of Eli’s task.

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612 – Davi Kopenawa, Bruce Albert, Alison Dundy – The falling sky – words of a Yanomami shaman

The Falling Sky is a remarkable first-person account of the life story and cosmo-ecological thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon. Representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy, Davi Kopenawa paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest–a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extraction industry.

In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation and experience as a shaman, as well as his first encounters with outsiders: government officials, missionaries, road workers, cattle ranchers, and gold prospectors. He vividly describes the ensuing cultural repression, environmental devastation, and deaths resulting from epidemics and violence. To counter these threats, Davi Kopenawa became a global ambassador for his endangered people. The Falling Sky follows him from his native village in the Northern Amazon to Brazilian cities and finally on transatlantic flights bound for European and American capitals. These travels constitute a shamanic critique of Western industrial society, whose endless material greed, mass violence, and ecological blindness contrast sharply with Yanomami cultural values.

Bruce Albert, a close friend since the 1970s, superbly captures Kopenawa’s intense, poetic voice. This collaborative work provides a unique reading experience that is at the same time a coming-of-age story, a historical account, and a shamanic philosophy, but most of all an impassioned plea to respect native rights and preserve the Amazon rainforest. (amazon)

“When I come back from a trip among the white people, the dizziness leaves my eyes after a while and my thought be-comes clear again. I no longer hear cars, machines, or airplanes. I only lend an ear to the tooro toads and krouma frogs that call the rain in the forest. I only hear the rustling of the leaves in the wind and the rumbling of the thunders in the sky. The ignorant words of the city politicians gradually vanish in the quiet of my sleep. I become calm again by going to hunt and making my spirits dance.

The forest is very beautiful to see. It is cool and aromatic. When you move through it to hunt or travel, you feel joyful and your mind is slow-paced. You listen to the chirping of the cicadas in the distance, or the cries of the curassows and the agami herons, and the clamor of the spider monkeys in the trees. Your worries are eased. Your thoughts can then follow one another without getting obscured.”

0608 – Steamboy (2004)

spacetime coordinates: 1863 Russian Alaska // 1866 Manchester –  London

Steamboy (Japanese: スチームボーイ Hepburn: Suchīmubōi) is a 2004 Japanese animated steampunk action film produced by Sunrise, directed and co-written by Katsuhiro Otomo, his second major anime release, following Akira. The film was released in Japan on July 17, 2004. Steamboy is one of the most expensive Japanese animated movies made to date. Additionally, the film was in production for ten years and utilized more than 180,000 drawings and 440 CG cuts.

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606

0601 – Mountain (2017 documentary)

Mountain is a 2017 Australian documentary film, co-written, co-produced and directed by Jennifer Peedom. Afer her critically acclaimed film, Sherpa, Peedom resumes her work with American mountaineer and photographer Renan Ozturk. He is responsible for most of the images in the film. American actor Willem Dafoe narrates the film and reads passages from Robert Macfarlane‘ book, “Mountains of the Mind”.

mountain   sherpa

598 – Gatta Cenerentola / Cinderella the Cat (2017)

spacetime coordinates: future Naples

Cinderella the Cat (Italian: Gatta Cenerentola) is a 2017 Italian animated film directed by Alessandro Rak (who previously directed The Art of Happiness), Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri and Dario Sansone, loosely based on the Giambattista Basile‘s fable of the same name and Roberto De Simone’s musical La Gatta Cenerentola. The plot is set in a decaying future Naples and concerns a mysterious mute teenager called Mia, who struggles to escape from the Camorra boss Salvatore Lo Giusto and her vicious stepmother Angelica.

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