Doors 7:30p
Show 8:00p

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

We are delighted to be hosting the debut screening in NYC of AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB, or: Looking for reflections in the toxic field of plenty, along with co-director, Lukas Marxt in attendance to share the film fresh of a jury award at Ann Arbor Film Festival and a worldwide tour of the film that included stops at DokLeipzig, Viennale, Kassel Dokumentarfilm & Videofestival, CinemAmbiente and many more.

Marxt and his co-director Vanja Smiljanić begin their journey to the singular landscape of the Salton Sea in California with a first stop at the former Air Force Base in Wendover, Utah, the launch site for the flights that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. Now a private airfield and museum, the space bears the heavy legacy of American military power. From there, they travel through California’s Central Valley — an engine of industrial agriculture — to arrive at the Salton Sea, a once-idyllic body of water now slowly suffocating under layers of salinity, agricultural runoff, and environmental neglect. In this terminal landscape, the film reflects on the interconnected histories of war, extraction, and environmental collapse across the American West.

“Recalling works by Harun Farocki and James Benning, AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB examines how the events of the 20th century have left an indelible mark on the landscape. Marxt and Smiljanić introduce us to conservative Americans for whom the “success” of the Manhattan Project instills pride and nostalgia. This is set against the views of environmentalists and members of local Indigenous tribes who are struggling to repair what has been broken. In the middle of it all are thousands of undocumented farm workers who sustain the very society that exploits them” — Michael Sicinski

Delving into the question of who holds the right to narrate history, the film juxtaposes the narratives of those who have traditionally held power to shape history with the voices of tribal communities whose stories have been systematically erased over time, as well as other marginalized communities whose right to speak up has been taken away.

Come through to learn this under-known geographic and political history, and to unpack how and who is able to tell these stories today.

Program

AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB or: Looking for reflections in the toxic field of plenty

85 min, 2024, Austria, Germany

“Among the palms, The Bomb” is a cinematic exploration that rounds up a seven-year-long research of the Salton Sea – the largest lake in California that is on the verge of ecological collapse, and the resilient community struggling to survive within this dystopian reality.

The highest asthma rates among children in the United States, chronic nosebleeds, the haunting memories of Native American tribal genocide, the echoes of military atomic bomb tests during the Manhattan Project, the massive monocultural farming culminating in cataclysmic fish and bird die-offs, and the exploitation of illegal immigrants, are just a few of the narratives that come together and define the Salton Sea.

The Historic Wendover Airfield Museum in Utah, a former military base that in 1944/45 played a pivotal role in the development of the Atomic Bomb, is the starting point of the film.

The film’s overarching mission is to ignite a collective awareness of the ongoing environmental and socio-political catastrophe that has remained concealed for years. This silence, perpetuated by society’s indifference to marginalized communities is contested by the enduring resonance of untold stories. From Native tribes to undocumented workers to dying body of water, their stories, and their land, are calling for our reaction.

Bios

Lukas Marxt is an artist and filmmaker whose work examines the relationships between human activity and natural environments. Since 2017, he has researched the pre-nuclear history and ecological structures of the Salton Sea in California. His interest in the dialogue between human and geological existence, and the impact of human activity upon nature, originated during his studies in Geography and Environmental Science. His observational approach explores landscapes as sites of political and environmental significance.

Lukas Marxt has exhibited work at Sonic Acts Biennial, Amsterdam; Hamburger Bahnhof – Contemporary Art National Gallery, Berlin; and Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, among others.

Vanja Smiljanić is a visual and performance artist whose interdisciplinary practice weaves together visual arts, video, and performance. She often employs the format of the performance-lecture to bridge fictional and experiential worlds, incorporating technical apparatus, diagrams, and sci-fi povera sculptures. By connecting systems of reality, her work explores the construction of ideologies as alienated regimes, using her own body as a vessel for narration, fluidly shifting between the roles of oracle and storyteller.

Vanja Smiljanić has exhibited work at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Gropius Bau, Berlin; and MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Art, Rome, among others.

Having grown up at the foot of the Austrian Alps, G. Anthony Svatek is deeply awed by the living world and the way people’s understanding of nature is informed by our increasingly technological and urban lives. He is based in Brooklyn and Callicoon, NY.

Amongst others, Svatek’s work has been shown at the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Prismatic Ground, DOCNYC, and published by Harper’s Magazine, Le Cinéma Club, and Aeon Magazine. His work has been supported by institutions including New York State Council on the Arts, the Simons Foundation, and Squeaky Wheel, and he is the recipient of the New Visions Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Current directed work includes HUMBOLDT USA (in production), TESTUDO HERMANNI (sixpack film), SOME THOUGHTS ON THE COMMON TOAD (narrated by Tilda Swinton), and collaborations CONTRACTIONS (editor, NYT OpDocs, director Lynne Sachs), and LITTLE, BIG, AND FAR (associate producer, NYFF, director Jem Cohen).