Interviews with trees

Hollywood stars Celeste Cipollini and Bradley Everett are shooting their new film Beyond – a labour of love for both of them about climate change, sustainability and spirituality, or more specifically: about the “sacred forest of the Lakota Sioux in the Black Mountains” and the “genocide of all indigenous life forms”. One of the artistic challenges is that Oscar-winning Celeste plays a fir and sex symbol Brad plays a Douglas fir. In addition, the production was moved to the (German) Franconian Forest for cost reasons, where the foliage first has to be laboriously recolored to make the setting look truly authentic. Unfortunately, the State Environmental Agency has concerns about this, even though the film team deliberately uses vegan materials. The jobs are threatened with being moved abroad, but in order to keep the domestic funding, Celeste and Brad address the press – a charm offensive that turns into a PR fiasco.

Political commitment and esotericism, self-discovery and self-deception, the clash between ecological and economic interests: with subtle irony and plenty of situational comedy, Michel Decar uses his Interviews with Trees to question the many “trigger points” of our time, without providing any conclusive answers. Because in the middle of a German forest, the boundaries between good intentions, romantic glorification and egomaniacal delusions of grandeur are disturbingly fluid.