Event Description

Screening of two short films – part of the NI Science Festival’s wider Generation Hope project. This is a drop in event with films playing throughout the half hour.

INIS NUA is an Architectural Sci-Fi Animated Short film produced in UNREAL ENGINE 5.6 with Metahuman Creator.

In a far future where rising seas and failing soil have driven people from their homeland, a techno-titan manufactured island named INIS NUA carries the brightest minds offshore in search of answers.

Promising utopia, the vessel soon reveals its true nature: sentient, ravenous, and unwilling to let its passengers return. Blending Irish myth with Tokyo-futurist aesthetics, INIS NUA charts three chapters; Exodus, Glitch, and Return, to tell a haunting story of temporary migration, memory, and machines.

Solastalgia 

The catastrophic effects of climate change, loss of species, war and the degradation of the environment are unavoidable today. It is a problem of such magnitude that many of us are experiencing poorer mental and physical health as a consequence. Eco anxiety a new term used to describe just that, the overwhelm and fear of what the future may look like, which can lead of to feel paralyzed with anxiety. Solastalgia was first termed in 2007 by Glenn Albrecht who studied the effects of environmental degradation on small remote aboriginal communities. A feeling of grief as we begin to realize what we have lost as we look around. It could be a forest that once stood, a road that now ploughs through a green area, a beach laden with plastics, an area once abundant with wildlife that has been cleared for development, the shrinking of a wild area to make way for intensive farming. Perhaps you’ve noticed the absence of certain species or increased deterioration in water health. This concept was further pursued by Power (2021) linking it to the positive empowerment and benefits on mental and physical health in relation to the activity of beach cleaning. A win win activity where participants get to feel they are making a difference, they have the interaction from others who want to make a difference, bonds are created both with the group and with the stewardship of nature and the environment, learning takes place and connection deepens.

The real thing and Solastalgia are a diptych of films themed around this concept, exploring some of the biggest causes of environmental degradation, marine litter and plastic pollution and how the phenomena of Solastalgia is experienced. One major drinks producer was found to be responsible for an astounding 11% of all  marine plastics, which in some ways reflects supply and demand and habitual consumer preferences. Unethical producers with inadequate policies have penetrated the markets, sinking their claws into nature and us as a result. Our survival is entirely dependent upon nature, for food, resources, weather systems and as the balance tips more greatly, we experience everything in more extreme ways. One of the greatest hopes is for people to wake up to the wider implications of habitual behaviors and consumption and to begin to act more mindfully in our daily choices. Take our power back from the companies and people who are out to exploit the world in favour of money and control and help to reestablish our connection and the way we identify with nature as a whole.

We are inextricably connected to nature; what harms nature cannot fail to harm us. Tread lightly, life truly is precious and the consequences of our actions matter. As Jane Goodall said, “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make”.