The Global Ecological Cinema Podcast from the Portland EcoFilm Festival

TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA featuring David Bim

Podcast Transcript (English)

Rozzell Medina: Welcome to the Global Ecological Cinema podcast from the Portland Eco Film Festival, where we share in-depth conversations about fascinating intersections of ecology, cinema, and filmmaking. Embracing the root definition of ecology, we explore what it means for humanity to have, hold, and transmit knowledge of planet Earth as our shared home through the power of cinema from around the living world.

This is a conversation with David Bim. His film, AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA–TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA– earned our festival's 2026 Black Merlin Grand Prize. The cinematic feature-length documentary tells a deeply human story presented in stunning black and white with immersive multi-dimensional soundscapes. It's a film that fully embodies time and space, nurtures empathy, and lingers in the imagination long after the end credits roll.

During the first half of our conversation, we discuss place-based filmmaking, the ancient cinematic impulse, and the ecological characteristics of Satyajit Rai's films, which kept David company as he shot AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA as a one-man crew on location in the Cuban wilderness. 

Then we focus on AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA more intently. David shares his experience capturing one of the film's most iconic sequences while wading chest-deep in the swamp. And we discuss the cyclical nature of the love and land that gives life to this award-winning film. 

Our interpreter is Luis Medina.

David Bim: Okay, perfect. Well, my name is David Bim and I'm the director of AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA–TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA in English. It's a documentary filmed in Cuba in one of the least known areas, even to Cubans themselves. It's perhaps one of the most inhospitable territories for human beings due to the amount of pests and mosquitoes. Also, being a swamp or a wetland, agriculture is very difficult. It's a very large peninsula, but it's where the fewest Cubans live. And those who do live there often do so in very complicated situations. 

So my story tries to get close to the intimacy of a family of three characters. There's Deinis, a 14 year old boy with severe autism who is totally dependent on his parents. And his parents, Mercedes and Landi, who are forced to live each day distanced from one another in order to stay together as a family. 

Because of this, the film is divided into two parts. In the first, we see Landi in the jungle where he camps and tries to get some food to bring home. There are crocodiles there that he can catch with his own hands. Then we see the second part at the seashore where Mercedes is located, who is in charge of Deinis and also has to track down charcoal, which is necessary for cooking. 

I think fundamentally it's a film about love. For me, there's no better symptom of love than giving everything in your life for another person without being able to see them, as with Landi, who often can't be with his son. In Mercedes' case, the situation is also very complex because almost everything is prohibited in Cuba. It's very difficult to live there, especially in the countryside, far from Havana.

The film is set in a very specific moment in 2021 during the global pandemic, which made survival very difficult for them. Especially in Cuba, a series of peaceful protests and revolts were unfolding, calling for more freedom, which also created a situation of great uncertainty. So the film simply tries to portray that vital circle that repeats itself over and over again in the lives of Landi and Mercedes so they can stay together as a family.

Rozzell Medina: How much do you think about ecology in relation to cinema? And do you consider yourself to be an ecological filmmaker?

David Bim: Well, we would have to define the term ecological very well to establish how I position myself there. I do many things more by intuition than by reasoning, but I do feel that my approaches to cinema have to have a coherence with who I am, right? For me, it's very difficult to distinguish David outside of making a film from the David who makes it. 

There's a book that awakened many things within me when it comes to being able to understand the reality in which I move. It's a book called The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. Basically what it says is that it's not just about you within a space, but that the space has its own voice and that it's an encounter, not an invasion. The space speaks to you, and many times I think it's fundamental to maintain a certain depth in this relationship with a space–like in a human relationship, to get to know each other, right? To know the space in which you operate and that the space also gets to know you a little.

And this legitimizes your being there. And for me, the most important thing about cinema is finding through time together the intimacy of my characters. The human being is what interests me the most. And without trying to judge them, but trying to express the movement of their lives and particularly the intimacy of their lives. So I do believe that way of filming starts from a very intimate and respectful relationship that often takes many years.

I've spent almost 10 years making this film within these spaces. And following Bachelard, it's fundamental to listen to spaces before even considering filming. And I find that belonging to the space, which is to say not imposing a gaze, but letting something reveal itself to us, has very clear points of contact with an ecological sensibility. Beyond the actual conservation of nature, what is its essence?

And what is our essence regarding that identity of the spaces in which we live, in which we preserve ourselves?

Rozzell Medina: In the Altamira Caves, dozens of thousands of years ago, humans painted animals, which, when illuminated by torchlight, appeared to move. And this seems to have been done purposefully. I'd love to hear your thoughts on humanity's cinematic impulse predating cameras.

David Bim: Great, because in fact, I'm also a film professor, and in the very first class I teach these topics, because I'm convinced that human beings have tried all their lives to discover cinema. It's just that technologically it wasn't possible until the end of the 19th century. But I consider that human beings are perhaps different from other animals in that we are aware of our own finitude. That is, we are aware that we are going to die. 

I have a dog and if I died, my dog might be aware that I died and loyally suffer. But perhaps the dog isn't aware that he himself will die one day. I think that's what differentiates us a bit from the rest of the animals. And in the end, that is an existential strain we have, because nobody ever asked us if we wanted to be in this world. And at the same time, the only certainty we have about this world is that one day we are no longer going to be in it. And not only that, but when we are gone, the world will probably continue. People will keep living beyond our death. And that's something that also leaves us a bit confused. 

So I feel that from there, humans have always needed to relate to time in an identity-based way, in an existential way. And I believe the origin of art comes precisely from there. I mean, I think art is something we might not need in our day-to-day life, but suddenly there's a day when a partner leaves us, or we lose our job, or we feel sad in some way. And what art does is create a time and a climate that sentimentally, emotionally, and spiritually works with the same energy that we need at that moment where we feel that life is passing by in front of us and we're just there a bit without knowing what to do. 

The first thing I ask my students is, “What do you see?” And I show them the painting of the wild boar in the Altamira caves in Spain, which in the West is the oldest testimony we have of an artistic expression. 

And they say, “It's a wild boar.” 

And I say to them, “Well, how are you so sure it's a wild boar? Have you ever seen an eight-legged boar?” Because in the paintings, it has eight legs.

And they tell me, “No, never, a boar has four at most.” 

So let's say that humans have always had a sensitivity towards movement since the origin of art. And I believe that cinema is precisely about life and about movement. It is an art that goes from left to right. That is to say, without time, we cannot create cinema. 

And in my view, a certain ecological consciousness wouldn't deal so much with abstinence, meaning I don't consume this, I don't do that, but with being very aware of the limits of the cycles. That is, what you can extract from nature as the living being you are, and at the same time, where your limits are, so that other living beings can relate and persist. Because without them, we don't exist. Without the trees, we don't exist. Without quality in the soil, we don't exist. So let's say that in terms of not just pure survival, but in identity-based terms, which is where I try to anchor it with art. In spiritual terms, we are what we are because we come from the earth.

Humans cannot be explained without the earth. And so, if we damage the earth, we are damaging ourselves, and in the long run that will perhaps harm the most vulnerable parts first. But ultimately it will finish us all off. And more importantly, it will end the possibility of a future time, which is precisely everything that life is based upon. So I think that unintentionally, cinema has a very ecological methodology because it is built on the identity of time.

Rozzell Medina: So if the first known expressions of the cinematic impulse were drawings of animals on cave walls that appeared to move in flickering torchlight, we might say that the original purpose of cinema was to honor our relationship with the world beyond just the human. In other words, ecological cinema.

David Bim: Yes, yes, absolutely. And when we look at futurism after the second industrial revolution, when suddenly times change again, and cars start to exist, and our relationship with time and speed begins to be very different, you see, for example, artists like Carlo Carà or other futurist artists who, to express that relationship with time in their era, go to the caves of Altamira to see what relationship they had with movement regarding those torches and how the drawings try to move like ghosts. 

Because in the end, the essence of man is the same after these 35,000 years. And it isn't a coincidence, from my point of view, that in that era, when, for example, Stoker writes Dracula about someone who feeds on other things, and his identity has to do with the movement of other lives, it's also the time when cinema originates.

That is to say, cinema is also the fruit of this second industrial revolution, which at the same time was looking at the first humans and their almost spiritual celebration of not being alone in the world and of developing in time with other species. Notice that the first piece of cinema is WORKERS LEAVING THE LUMIÉRE FACTORY. InWORKERS LEAVING THE LUMIÉRE FACTORY, the first protagonist is not Brad Pitt or Cary Grant. It's the people. 

And so when the people are filmed and projected–meaning returned to the people like ghosts embalmed in time–that's when cinema begins to be an art. It stops being just a succession of technological development with Edison and the Kinetoscope, or Janssen's photographic revolver, and becomes an art. From 1896 until today, cinema in the way it's made hasn't evolved that much technologically. Because in the end it's not a matter of technology, it's a matter of essence. 

We are not alone in the world. And we need to be able to return to ourselves over and over again. Since in our life, we can't see things more than once, perhaps by embalming time we can revisit it and acquire a certain depth of the things that are happening. So I believe that cinema is the main art for empathy. And in that, I believe that looking at those who are different is very important to have a whole ecological conception. We are not alone. You are not the only one. Cinema tells us that all the time.

Rozzell Medina: Speaking of cinema as an art form for empathy, and knowing that you're interested in the ancestral nature of cinema prior to the camera, what do you think is the potential of cinema to contribute to the restoration of ecological balance, and what kinds of stories do you hope to see more of?

David Bim: Yes, well, I think it is fundamental. Right now, humanity is talking in terms of artificial intelligence. Not only in the field of cinema, but in everything. It seems that we've already set up a new God and an intelligence that doesn't come from the organic, but is artificial. Well, I think that if cinema offers us anything–cinema as an art, not cinema as an industry–it's the possibility of continuing to be human. Meaning, when I watch a movie, what I'm trying to acquire is a human experience.

Maybe certain industry films regarding artificial intelligence seem too perfect to me. Artificial intelligence knows very well when to make a plot twist. It's read Robert McKee's book and it proceeds in a very mechanical, very optimized way to make something that works. I think that leads us further towards a conception that everything in the world has to be optimized. But when all the resources of the world are optimized by man, I think we abuse those resources, because we end up using more things from nature than we need to endure.

And that ends up harming the rest of the species, especially those more vulnerable than man, including the human beings of the future, our children. I think that if cinema today can have something very valuable in ecological terms, it's to continue defending the organic, to continue defending the human, even if it is irregular, even if a film goes through phases that are not always brilliant. We are the ones who have life, and organicity is not perfection.

So perhaps seeking the artifice destroys the organic nature of our intelligence, which is something that passes through our senses, or through our heart, through our spirit. In the end, what we're defending is that we are the ones who are alive. We're the ones who have an experience. And not only us, because people develop around forests and animals. So I do feel that cinema as an art is always trying to understand matters emotionally in that we are not perfect.

And that seems to me a great virtue, because when we are perfect is when we start to become transmissions of optimization and over industrialization. And I think that ends up harming the balance between what we need and what we can contribute to nature. So I feel that cinema takes us a bit towards that reflection. Maybe not in a direct way, but in an implicit way.

Rozzell Medina: Moving to another kind of influence, you've spoken about your love for Satyajit Ray’s films. I wonder if you would describe him as an ecological filmmaker or aspects of his films as being ecological.

David Bim: It's not something I've thought much about, but I think so, because the essence of his characters has a lot to do with the place they come from. If we go to the Apu Trilogy, everything that Apu fights for, everything he tries to achieve, and what he has to give up because of his own social class, comes precisely from the space in which it happens. And I believe that this union of identity between character and space, where I'm not something foreign to my nature and my nature is not foreign to me, I believe that is a purely ecological thought.

I mean, we are animals of this earth and to the extent that we are, we can do it a lot of harm. But at the same time, the earth changes us. So I feel that there is a maternal filial relationship throughout at least the Apu trilogy, which I love deeply and have seen many times.

For me, the most beautiful scene not just of the Apu Trilogy but of 99 % of the films I've seen is the scene where Apu is with his older sister. The two are in the countryside in a very poor family, and there's a moment when it starts to rain. And it's a rain that could be portrayed in many ways, even in a very cruel way because of something that happens later. But the way that Satyajit films the rain, and I think Kurosawa draws a lot from Satyajit in this, he does it as liberation, as beauty, and he does it as essence. 

In fact, there's a moment where he places a close-up on the little sister's face receiving the rain. It's beautiful. It's a synthesis of what we are. You realize that in reality, we don't need so many things that we spend so much energy on. When a rain like that falls, and you have the spirit of a little girl, and you know how to see it and feel it in that degree of purity, you realize how stupid we adults often are, wasting so much suffering and so much energy on things that we really don't need amidst that essentiality.

Rozzell Medina: From the opening shot of AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA–TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA–I saw Landi as a sort of ecological superhero, given his abilities and connection to the land, which reveal a deep knowledge and kinship with the territory. I wonder if you see Landi as a sentinel of sorts, someone whose body and senses are so attuned to the ecosystem that he's effectively an extension of the Zapata wetlands.

David Bim: When the film starts, Landi has already been there for many years. We accompany him on a journey, but I think the film transmits the certainty that Landi has been there for a long time, and he will still be there afterwards. In fact, in the first sequence where he's crossing a swampy, uneven area, transporting a very heavy crocodile, Landi never doubts where he is or where he's going. Even for me, following him, it was difficult. 

One of the things Landi always told me was, “If you ever get lost in the jungle, don't try to find the path again. Don't try to go back, because the jungle looks a lot like itself. And by trying to go back, you might possibly go deeper inside, and I can never rescue you. Stay where you are.” Of course, one of the things I realize, and in this I do believe very much that Landi is a sentinel, is that the listening capacity he has, I don't have. Because those things can't be improvised. Either you belong to the territory or you don't. I was a guest in that space. Landi was a part of that space.

So I do feel that there's a degree of essence in Landi, that his identity cannot be understood without the space. Another thing I find very interesting is that he knows very well what he can take from the territory. Obviously, Landi is there to be able to nourish his family and get food from the swamp, but at the same time, he knows what the space requires of him. When Landi finds a small hutia, a small rat that lives in the swamp in Cuba, Landi is not indifferent.He finds that it doesn't have a mother and that he has to be its mother for long enough until that hutia is an adult and can return to the tree. 

Cruelty or excess never dwell within Landi. Everything he takes from the space is essential for him and his family to survive. And he doesn't take what is not essential. There is no just in case, which I think often happens in societies and in the city where we frequently lose the reverence for this symbiotic relationship, which is not only from the space towards us, but also what we can give to the space. We lose it completely, and we start acquiring materials just in case we need them. I have more clothes than I possibly need, just in case. I buy more food than I can possibly eat, just in case. And sometimes the just in case is useful, but sometimes it isn't. And in that “isn't,” we're throwing away many things that don't belong to us. Because the fact that we can pay for them doesn't mean that they belong to us.

In that sense, I believe that essence derives from the fact that it is a bi-directional relationship. Landi knows what he can take from the space, but he also knows what the space requires of him, and he is loyal to that relationship.

Rozzell Medina: Sticking with Landi and his relationship with the swamp, and with you, I'm going to ask you a question I wanted to ask when I first saw the film with you in Mexico, but I didn't have time. It has to do with the moment when Landi looks at the camera during a very challenging moment, capturing a crocodile by hand in the swamp in the rain.

Do you remember very well filming that moment? I'd love to know what that look said to you and how it felt to receive it.

David Bim: It's something that in the moment I wasn't aware that it happened because of the circumstance in which we were filming. But afterwards it became fundamental for the editing of the film. I mean, I think the film is explained by that look. And I'll try to say why. 

When the crocodile hunting scene came, I knew it was a shot that would never happen again. Landi had to take special precautions, because I was going to be there exposed, without protection. Landi is an older man with heart problems who is already exposed himself. So as much as I'm an adult and try to be as consistent as possible, I was exposing my friend's situation even more. And we had to do it in the worst weather conditions. 

So when Landi found the crocodile to capture it, the circumstances were extremely difficult–to the point that he lost control and the crocodile bit him, scratching his elbow. I had told Landi that rather than protecting me–because I was in the water up to my chest, just like he was–what I needed to protect, what I was very afraid for, was my small camera. It was a small camera that could be totally destroyed if it got wet. So what we agreed on was using an umbrella tied to my neck. I told him that the umbrella absolutely couldn't fly away during the whole sequence. He's very good at making knots, and he made a knot for me that two weeks later I still couldn't breathe right because it was so tight, and there was a lot of wind.

From the top of the umbrella, he tied another small string that I held in my mouth. With my mouth, I pulled downward to create a sort of bubble that covered the camera, which was on a small gimbal. But the only reference I had to try to accompany Landi's movement was a tiny screen on the camera. Because of the humidity and the rain, it had fogged up completely. So basically, what I saw was a black blur rather than Landi.

Obviously with crocodiles below, with mosquitoes, but it's something you get used to when you spend enough years there and you accept the coherence of what you're filming. So under those circumstances, unable to see anything, trying not to fail because it was a shot I wouldn't be able to get again, I had to have incredible sensitivity to know if I stepped on an irregular surface in the swamp. Again, I couldn't fall. And then I followed that black blur that was Landi to try to correct the camera the whole time if necessary.

And another thing happened. When the sequence ended, I wasn't in a position to be able to watch it because I had very little battery left, and we still had things to film before leaving the jungle. So I felt that something very powerful had happened there, but I didn't know clearly what had happened. I only knew that Landi had taken longer than I felt he should have to capture the crocodile, and that he had suffered a lot. So when I finished, I went to the film school in San Antonio de los Baños where I teach. I rented out the main cinema hall at about six in the morning, before the first class, to watch the raw footage. 

When I watched that sequence, I saw the fear on Landi's face. I saw the fear on the face of a friend who, when he is bitten by the crocodile, rather than thinking about himself, thinks that if he is in that situation, imagine mine. I'm unable to see and I'm improvising. So for me, that look really signifies what friendship is. But later it signifies something that for me is fundamental to the editing.

You see, there are two looks at the camera in the film. The first one is that one, which happens in the hardest, most uncertain, most dangerous moment that occurs. And then there is a moment where Landi is bathing in the sea with his boy, Deinis, who has problems with autism, who loves the sea, deeply, and whose relationship with me is fraternal. 

They really aren't my characters, they're my family. Before filming for the first time, I lived with them for five years. 

So Deinis doesn't know how to speak, but he knows very well how to show his loved ones how he feels. And he really misses being able to go to the sea when his dad isn't there, because his mother, Mercedes, has to do many things, and can't take him. And when he's in the sea, the person he looks at to say, “How nice, how nice it is here with dad and with the water and in this present moment,” is me. And since I'm the one holding the camera, it's actually the camera he's looking at, at the viewer. 

So let's say that the editing is structured like a mirror, where without Landi's look of suffering in the swamp, without that look of pain or of uncertainty, it would never be possible–because of his social condition, because of his vulnerability, for his son to have at some point in his life that look of joy, that look of, “How nice to be here with dad in the sea.”

Rozzell Medina: Speaking of reflections and patterns, AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA has such an equilibrium. There's a symmetry to it and more so a balance. I even counted the shots in the first part and the second part, and I was amazed to see that there's almost exactly the same number of shots in both parts. Along these lines, AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA is, among other things, an ecological love story with a cyclical nature.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the cyclical nature of the relationship between Landi and Mercedes.

David Bim: Yes, I really couldn't start filming the movie until I came up with the idea of the circle. At the time, I was reading a book, The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, which tells the story of Sisyphus, who is forced to carry a very heavy rock on his back and climb to the top of a hill. But when he arrives, the rock rolls down the other side, and he has to go pick it up again and carry it back up eternally. 

For me, the vulnerability, the social class in which Landi and Mercedes move, made me notice that time is not the same for everyone. Time seems like something mathematical, countable, measurable with numbers. But time has a verticality. And when you're especially vulnerable in your society, the factor of time becomes like a terribly painful enemy. It becomes a countdown where your life is transformed into a permanent urgency. You never arrive on time for anything. It doesn't matter if you run. You are always late. It doesn't matter if you always give your best. You are always late.

But the most perverse thing of all, for me, is that there isn't even an end to that. What causes suffering is a kind of purgatory where you will never see the light at the end of the tunnel. So the first thing I asked myself was, “Why do they keep going forward?” Or, “Why can't they stop moving forward if it's costing them all this pain?” Because there's a very pertinent question that's difficult to ask. There are times when even though we are animals and have a survival instinct, there's a moment when the suffering involved in surviving makes you ask yourself, “Why not rest at any cost?”

So what I realized is that we are capable of carrying that rock if someone we love more than ourselves depends on us. Someone who is entirely dependent on us, meaning that their future depends on our actions. Then I realized that Deinis, the boy, was at the center of every one of their movements. And that was a notion of love that I had never encountered before. I came face to face with love in all its purity. That is to say, I love someone so much that I will take care of them in spite of myself, every day of my life, without knowing when this suffering will stop. 

I say this because sometimes the circle feels like something very aesthetically pleasing. But making a single circle in the lives of Landi and Mercedes is tremendously painful. And they don't do it just once. Today, as we speak, they're completing another circle. So I feel that identity is also that: knowing who you are, where you stand, what they need from you. And instead of judging so much of what you deserve, it's, “How can I help the one next to me whom I love?” 

All the time when they're in one place, they're asking themselves, “What's happening in the other place?” Landi wonders, “What is happening with Mercedes? What is happening with Deinis?” 

Mercedes stands on her porch and wonders, “Why isn't Landi arriving on time?” They take care of each other across the distance. So the space, when you think about it, is actually their love. And only for the other am I capable of completing the circle.

Rozzell Medina: Do you see the cyclical nature of this family dynamic mirrored by the cycles of nature and the jungle in particular?

David Bim: I feel that when a person has enough resources to have everything they want, they lose a lot of their capacity to listen. And I feel that nature is designed in a way that over time, it gives us everything we need, but it doesn't give it to us all the time. So when you can't have everything here and now, as happens with my characters, I feel they refine their listening capacity a lot, because nature needs to be their ally. They need nature to help them survive, because of the vulnerability they experience. 

We're children of nature. We cannot exist without this planet. The day we go to Mars, I don't know if we'll be able to survive or not, but I feel that identity-wise, as they say in Cuba, we're screwed. Because we stop being what we are. We're from here, and we are not alone. Those are the two things nature tells us: “You are from here, and you are not alone.” 

So I think these characters obviously understand that if they do this, then maybe nature will provide a little crocodile. And when I say “a little crocodile,” it's very important to clarify that it must have already had a reproductive cycle. Because if they haven't, tomorrow there won't be any more crocodiles to feed their son. That is fundamental. If you know how to listen, nature gives to you. And it's not about abstinence. It's not about thinking you're taking away from it. It's about knowing, like the fruits of a tree, what it's giving you, and when it won't give you anymore until next year or next spring. It's knowing where your limits are. And obviously the limits are marked by the circles.

David Bim: For me, understanding this film was, among other things, understanding that identity was largely found in the sound. In fact, for me, the color of my film is the sound. One of the things that color gives you in cinema is perspective. Because you lose the three-dimensional capacity when you film since you project it onto a two-dimensional surface. So you use color a lot to give perspective. If you have a black and white image, the perspective becomes even flatter. But it's a fantastic opportunity for the sound to take on greater impact in essential importance. 

So all the spaces are speaking to Landi, who at the same time has his own breathing, or to Mercedes who is evolving through those long takes. All this communication of listening is what I experience, understanding or living with my characters.

Rozzell Medina: Please share some of your favorite ecological films, as defined by you, and why you love them.

David Bim: PATHER PANCHALI by Satyajit Ray. AU HASARD BALTHAZAR by Bresson. I had never seen an animal filmed as an animal and not with a human voice or human feelings. It's incredible. I get emotional because Bresson respects me and respects the donkey. And the relationship between the donkey and Marie is sensational. It's something unforgettable for me.

Rossellini is a very ecological filmmaker. STROMBOLI, for example, and GERMANY, YEAR ZERO. Because it's very important to understand what was happening–not only about Nazis and fascists, the majority of us understand that they are very dangerous–but about war itself, the destruction. It's something that gives us nothing. You aren't victorious if you destroy everything.

Rozzell Medina: Thank you for making AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA, for sharing it with us, and for all the good you do in the world.

David Bim: Thank you for everything, because I felt very comfortable. Rozzell, thank you very much.

Rozzell Medina: If you haven't seen AL OESTE, EN ZAPATA–TO THE WEST,IN ZAPATA–directed by David Bim, I hope you'll find the opportunity. We'll be screening it throughout June 2026 as part of our Best of the Fest series in Florence, Oregon, Astoria, Oregon, and Olympia, Washington. If you have seen it, I hope you'll talk about it with your friends, family, and strangers.

The 2026 Portland EcoFilm Festival is sponsored by Crag Law Center and Solve. 

We are a signature program of the Hollywood Theatre, Portland, Oregon's premier modern historic movie palace. Learn more at portlandecofilmfest.org and hollywoodtheatre.org. 

Our theme music is from the song Earth Worship by the amazing band Rubblebucket. 

Our interpreter for this conversation was Luis Medina, with additional assistance from Stefania Montaña.

Our Global Ecological Cinema podcast is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Rozzell Medina. Thanks for listening, and for all the good you do in the world.