From Bodybuilders-Turned-Vets to Abandoned Nuclear Sites: Our Top Nature Film Picks for MIFF 2022

Nature is under the spotlight at the 70th annual Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), which runs August 4–21 in cinemas (and 11-28 online) this year in partnership with MINI. Through a collection of documentaries focused on our relationship with the natural world, MIFF is asking audiences to examine and explore the way we shape nature, as well as understand the way nature shapes us.

Here are our top picks for this year’s nature-themed films.

Fire of Love
Described as a “love story written in lava”, this documentary offers up extreme apocalyptic visuals that we usually expect from science fiction. The fiery visions of destruction in Fire of Love are real though, captured by French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, a married couple defined by their passion for filming volcanos – and as this documentary suggests, each other.

Compiled from the Kraffts’ extensive archives, Canadian director Sara Dosa (The Seer and The Unseen) has created a film about a couple united by a passion that sees them living life to the fullest on the (at times literal) edge of the world.

Greenhouse by Joost
If you’ve ever been curious about what it would be like to be completely self-sufficient, this is the film for you. Visionary Australian designer Joost Bakker takes audiences through his Future Food System, a self-sufficient residence in Melbourne’s Federation Square that provides shelter, food and energy while reusing any by-products as fuel or fertiliser.

This MIFF Premiere Fund–supported film follows the Future Food System’s journey from conception to completion, as Joost works with chefs Matt Stone and Jo Barrett alongside a team of builders, engineers and experts in agriculture, aquaponics and biochemistry to bring his vision to life.

I’m So Sorry
Touring mostly abandoned and often radioactive sites of nuclear activity, I’m So Sorry sees Chinese dissident documentarian Zhao Liang reveal the haunting legacy of nuclear power.

Through the observation of neglected structures and the communities that remain, Liang creates something of a global ghost story, a powerful warning of what may come. At a time when nuclear power is going through a resurgence as a solution to climate change, this unsettling film serves as a reminder of the kind of future we may be choosing.

A Marble Travelogue
Marble was once Greece’s greatest form of cultural expression. But as the country’s struggles with debt persist, marble’s role as pure commodity is changing, as it shifts to provide important overseas currency. Giant slabs of the stone are being snapped up by Chinese buyers keen to build on (and with) its cultural importance.

Director Sean Wang’s look at this bustling global trade is both insightful and funny, as he uncovers a colourful cast of characters involved in shipping the marble around the world while turning it into everything from faux classical statues to fridge magnets.

All That Breathes
Winner of the Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize, this poetic film by director Shaunak Sen follows two brothers obsessed with a seemingly endless task: rescuing black kite birds poisoned by the pollution over New Delhi. So thick is the haze, birds often simply fall from the sky.

Nadeem Shehzad and Mohammad Saud run an amateur veterinary clinic from their basement, using their knowledge of muscles and tendons from teenage years spent as bodybuilders, to patch up more than 1000 birds a year. They’ve been doing this for 20 years. Their story is both a beautiful look at the power of coexistence, and a warning about what is at stake in the face of climate collapse.

Broadsheet is a proud media partner of MIFF. See the full 2022 MIFF program.