30.10.24, 20:30, Lonely Oaks (2023)

Thirty metres above the ground in the treetops of the Hambach Forest, a new community has emerged. After several years of discussion and social struggles, in 2018 this place became the centre of discussions on climate policy in Germany because of a group of people living in self-built tree houses to prevent the imminent clearing of the forest. Film student Steffen Meyn spent two years using a 360-degree helmet camera to document the partly peaceful, partly radical struggle of these activists against the destruction of nature. Until he fell from a tree during an illegal police evacuation and died.

Steffen's friends and fellow students Fabiana Fragale, Kilian Kuhlendahl and Jens Mühlhoff made Lonely Oaks from Steffen's personal archive. The solidarity and interdependence that exists between the activists contrasts sharply with the images of police brutality and climatic destruction. Lonely Oaks is more than a hagiography, however, but offers a complex look at the personal price of activist resistance. The young maker's doubts about how to fight strategically emerge as clearly as his perseverance to change a broken world.

This screening will be preceded by the short film Ontmoeting in de Bourgoyen (2020). The film will be followed by a panel discussion on concern and resistance within contemporary climate activism.