Close to the Trees

The first time the world ended, Noah did not put a single plant in his ark. Interesting choice. Life on earth is not possible without plants; they make the world. They are responsible for the climate, the air we breathe and that synthesised sunrays run through our veins. Humans are not the most powerful beings of creation. We do not know how to produce air nor swallow the sun, and our civilisation depends on subsequent versions of plants – fossilised. Noah, who at the end of the day was following the orders of the Creator, sent out a dove after the flood and the dove came back with an olive leaf in its beak. A sign that the world could, this time, begin again.

The axe and the plough changed the face of the earth. They destroyed, we destroyed, the forests. This film program is dedicated to its most renowned members, who are more on their own by the day. From the trees, which are also social beings, we have taken away – as from ourselves – community. They remember, communicate and care for one another, they lift the young, they attend to the sick, they put their resources in common, they remain interconnected underground through roots and mycelium... They would never survive if they were only interested in competition.

We are blind to the trees, to their intelligence and even to their beauty. We see, if at all, timber, fruit or shade. We see servitude. Relating with them we would never get bored, but we renounce a company that lightens, the infinite play of likenesses – treetops like spiders, like lightning, like fireworks, seeds like helicopters, serrated leaves, pine needles – and the pleasure of admiration. To this shortsightedness we will respond with fourteen films, olive leaves amidst the flood.

In a forest, anything that has lived can live again. From fallen trunks sprout new branches, moss, mushrooms. Birds nest and insects roam. Ours, however, is death upon death. The trees are in want of us for nothing and they have all the time in the world. It is us who are now out of time.