To whom belongs the earth on which a country constructs its sovereignty? Which political and economic reading of the territories legitimizes governments to make decisions about exploitation, extractivism of the ground and its valuable, sometimes dangerous and finite resources? The program confronts two conflicted soils and the complexities of linking past and present political actions in order to create a livable and fair future. The one haunted by the toxicity of Uranium and the socialist ideology of the GDR. The other is rich in oil fields and its extraction needs huge investments of money and energy regulated by state licenses which may violate Norwegian law. (Maria Morata)
THE PLAY OF EVERYMAN provides a unique insight into Norway's first climate lawsuit. In 2016, Nature & Youth and Greenpeace sued the Norwegian state for granting oil licenses in the Barents Sea, which they believed violated the environmental §112 of the Norwegian Constitution. Norwegian citizens have a record high trust in the state. At the same time, Norway, as the world's seventh-largest exporter of CO2, contributes to the climate crisis threatening the basis of life and the diversity of nature. Do future generations and nature have any legal protection in Norway? This question was put at the forefront of the climate lawsuit, which was referred to as the trial of the century. With a strictly observational method, the film forces us to reflect on Norway's responsibility to protect nature and the climate and how law and politics merge. The documentary was filmed exclusively inside the courtroom in Borgarting Court of Appeal in 2019 and the Supreme Court House in 2020… >>>
Premiere:
German Premiere
A gravel path on the edge of a village. Between fields, across to a fence. Drawn into the map of former uranium mining areas in Saxony and Thuringia. From 1946 to 1990, the Soviet corporation SAG Wismut mined uranium there for the USSR's nuclear weapons program. Above ground, socialism shines towards the future, below, the ancient rocks radiate through the torn up earth. The GDR environmental movement throws a spotlight on the way. Night. Darkness. A group of people, a flashlight, a shovel. X-ray film is buried in the gravel. The ground exposes the film, leaving a trail of its invisible rays. The film SUN UNDER GROUND follows this trace horizontally through today's landscapes, marked by mining and redevelopment, and vertically through the ground as an archive. Deep drilling through space and time traces the sedimented narratives that surround the element of uranium materially, metaphorically, and geopolitically. How does it haunt the landscape? How does it connect with the ghost of socialism? What stories and biographies surround its excavation sites? How does it radiate into its recording media? How can the spectrum of the visible be shifted to bring its invisible radiation into the image, to make it audible or palpable?… >>>
- Director: Alex Gerbaulet, Mareike Bernien
