MEET THE FILMMAKER: Wednesday November 1, 6.45pm. Join director Josh Fox for a post-film Q&A.

Scientists have come to call the first 6-8 months of the Covid Pandemic “The Anthropause.” During this time industrial fossil fuel pollution plummeted and for the very first time in history, worldwide emissions were reduced enough to halt climate change. In the midst of the global shut down, Josh Fox, who is suffering from neurological symptoms and cognitive damage from long covid, isolates himself in a one room cabin in the hopes that his beloved Pennsylvania forest can heal him. During his nine-month seclusion he confronts the legacy of genocide and intergenerational trauma that scars the land and his family. His co-stars are a tenacious group of beavers, a young bear mother, howling coyotes and a ton of invasive honey-suckle. Nature may just teach us how to heal ourselves and the lessons of the Anthropause may just save the world.

Short film CRY OF THE GLOSSY (10m) will screen before the feature: Taking us on a journey through the forested hills of the NSW Southern Highlands (Australia), poet and Gunai woman, Kirli Saunders, reflects on the special place the endangered Glossy Black Cockatoo holds in her heart and culture.

Event is co-presented by Melbourne Documentary Film Festival.