Ecoscope: Free Screening of Documentary Films and Environmental Protection Talk

Matter Out of Place by Nikolaus Geyrhalter and A World Beneath a Dark Lid by Amir Muratović present an inspiring yet cautionary perspective on the dangers facing our planet.

The second edition of Ecoscope, a programme organized by the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region that combines film screenings with a talk on ecology and environmental protection, will take place between 1 and 7 April on the web platform ondemand.kinomeetingpoint.ba. Free screenings of two recently released documentaries and a talk about the global issue of waste collection and black carbon air pollution will be organized within the context of Ecoscope.

 Matter Out of Place by renowned Austrian documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Our Daily Bread, 7915 km, Homo Sapiens) won the Pardo Verde WWF Prize at the Locarno International Film Festival. Matter Out of Place is a film about rubbish that has spread across the world, to the most remote corners of the planet – from the mountain peaks of Switzerland to Nepal, the Maldives and the Nevada deserts. Nikolaus Geyrhalter follows the traces of our rubbish across the planet and sheds light on the endless struggle of people to gain control over the vast quantities of waste. Are waste collection, separation, incineration and landfills only Sisyphean efforts that solve this burning issue only outwardly?

The documentary A World Beneath a Dark Lid by Amir Muratović follows Matevž Lenarčič, an outstanding airman, photographer, mountaineer and environmentalist who flies around the globe in his ultralight plane, collecting particles of black carbon, the second largest cause of global warming. His travels have gained a deeper meaning after he met Griša Močnik, a physicist researching the impact of black carbon on the climate and our lives. As part of the Green Light World Flight project, Matevž and his crew travel from Sarajevo and Milan to Africa, Patagonia, Antarctica and all the way to India and Bhutan, creating an exceptional database to help us understand how black carbon tends to linger in the atmosphere.

The post-screening Ecoscope Talk features Jaka Kranjc, the Head of the Ecologists Without Borders Society (Slovenia), and Maja Prijatelj Videmšek, journalist for the Delo daily specialising in ecology and environmental protection. Within the context of the programme, the talk and free screenings will be organised in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Slovenia.

Ecoscope is a joint programme of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region that comprises Zagreb Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival, Auteur Film Festival Belgrade, Herceg Novi Film Festival and Ljubljana International Film Festival Liffe. It has been devised with the aim of strengthening awareness of nature conservation and the efforts of the region's leading festivals to contribute to positive social change through their activities.

The first edition of the project was dedicated to the documentary The Hidden Life of Trees, which was screened in late 2022 in Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Herceg Novi and Cankarjev dom Ljubljana.

The project is co-financed by Creative Europe’s MEDIA sub-programme.