Filmmaker Statement

This project, along with its longer form iteration, “Rare Animals,” aims to express the horrors of climate change through the documentary mode; using traditionally narrative, dramatic, and in the case of Rare Animals, thriller motifs, the audience is oriented in the space of climate allegory, bearing witness to its effects in an intimate character space. Somehow, the choice of “winemaker” as core subject, especially natural winemaker, or: individual in the state of permanent resistance to industrial agricultural practices, seems a likely counter representative to the contributing factors of climate crisis. Moreover, that these individuals are essentially like prisoners of their land, the overarching threat of global warming bears added tension. These are people begging for and implementing a more atavistic way of working, one marked by simplicity and a Maslowian set of principles— a sort of idealism that is increasingly rare.