Animal: dir Cyril Dion (2021)

16-year-old Bella and Vipulan are part of a generation that knows its very future is at risk – between climate change and the mass extinction of wildlife, their world could well be inhabitable 50 years from now. At the instigation of director Cyril Dion, who already nailed his colours to the mast with his 2015 investigative documentary  Tomorrow, and the eminent primatologist Jane Goodall, the two teenagers embark in an extraordinary quest: to travel around the world and meet with scientists and activists to find another way of living alongside other species, more as roommates than predators. The two protagonists are simultaneously very ordinary and very engaging; Dion has produced a powerful argument for coexistence rather than competition, and his skill is to let us draw our own conclusions.

The film screens in the NAAS programme under the umbrella title Green Reel: Films for a Sustainable Future, featuring independent films from around the world that focus on the environment and sustainability. NAAS is a collaboration between a number of cultural institutions in the UAE: the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region, the Embassies of France in the United Arab Emirates, the Embassy of Canada to the United Arab Emirates, the Italian Cultural Institute of Abu Dhabi, the Embassy of Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Alliance Française Dubai.

NAAS: Green Reel runs from 10 September to 26 November at Alliance Française Dubai. The screenings are all free and subtitled in English.

Upcoming: (click the title for the link)

5 November Taste the Waste dir Valentin Thurn (2011)
12 November More than Honey dir Markus Imhoof (2012)
19 November Hadwin’s Judgement dir Sasha Snow (2015)
26 November Dans la brume | Just a Breath Away dir Daniel Roby (2018)