The Spirit of Survival: the New Australian Documentary Asking Humanity, Are We the Endangered Generation?
After being personally impacted by natural disasters, filmmaker Celeste Geer hit an astonishing moment of truth: something, perhaps everything, must change. Meet the scientists, activists and artists tackling new approaches to climate change - and crafting a future to embrace, rather than brace for.
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What social causes does The Endangered Generation explore? First Nations People, Earth & Environment
Discover other top movies & TV shows that explore these themes - and more - at good.film.
What’s the key social insight within The Endangered Generation? There’s a palpable frustration bubbling underneath this film: solutions to the global crises we’re facing are available, yet so far, we’ve failed to meet the challenge. But new perspectives are gaining public attention. The Endangered Generation highlights the optimism that’s in the zeitgeist, and the inspiration that’s waiting to be found in diversity.
Quiz time: did you know that for the Indigenous cultures of South America, gold was a sacred way to connect with the supernatural? Or that there’s a species of native palm that can “walk” up to 20 metres a year from shade to sunlight, by growing roots in the direction it wants to travel? How about the fact that New Zealand’s Whanganui River was granted the status of “personhood”, giving it the same legal rights as a human being?
They’re just three of the fascinating global facts that Celeste Geer includes in her new feature, The Endangered Generation? - and yes, the question mark is very intentional. More than a nature documentary, this is an environmental thinkpiece, a meditation on connection, and a rallying cry for urgent action, rolled into one.
If that sounds complex to you, well, bingo. When you’re describing the interconnectivity of an entire planet, then yep - there’s a LOT of concepts to digest! If you prefer your docos in more of a linear style, with neat resolutions and a tidy bow on top, The Endangered Generation? may not be your jam. But if you love a smorgasbord of ideas, sprung from an array of different minds - and tidbits galore about the diversity and deep connections that exist in our world - then you’ll be keen as a bean for the questions this film poses.
Questions like: are we truly the endangered generation? Or is there still time to draw from the knowledge of our global Indigenous cultures… make a fundamental shift in human behaviour… and halt the desperate warning cries of an ancient planet that we’ve tipped perilously close to the brink? The Endangered Generation? seeks the answers - and finds inspiration - from a diverse & unexpected band of eco-minded human beings.
What’s the basis of The Endangered Generation story?
Humans are great adapters. That’s not just us saying so - Scientific American cited our sizable brains and our capacity for culture as the two driving factors behind our adaptive ability as a species. The Endangered Generation? ponders whether, focused on our cement & steel endeavours, we’ve lost that ability - and if we can rediscover it.
That forms the spine of the story: a jungle trek with our primary guides, Agar and Tamsin. Agar Tejada is a Panamanian/Guna Indigenous community leader, and Tamsin Woolley-Barker is an American evolutionary biologist, and Director of the Geoversity School for Biocultural Leadership. It’s interesting to see the two bond over their shared but vastly different understanding of natural ecosystems, and the overlap that can exist between western and First Nations learnings.
Agar is making the trek to return to her ancestral jungle village. Forced to relocate to higher ground after separate flooding events, Agar has a deeply personal mission to save the place where she was born from environmental disaster. Tamsin joins Agar on this jungle journey, hoping to learn more about the novel survival strategies used by organisms there (like that “walking palm” we mentioned).
For Tamsin, it’s a world of natural know-how that could potentially be applied to business and engineering practices in the US. Green cities. Sustainable structures. Respectful land management. As they venture deeper into the jungle, Agar reveals a web of interconnected and collaborating species that delight Tamsin, but their trek goes beyond a biology lesson. Far more valuable is the knowledge of Agar’s elders, passed down through generations, which give us a deeper understanding of their spiritual connection to the world - one that lots of us in western cultures are yearning to reclaim.
Does the film promote hope within our climate crisis?
There’s no sugar-coating it - there’s a lot of alarming statistics in this doco. Antarctic ice shelves hanging by a thread, entire ocean current systems a hair’s breadth from irreversible change… if there was an Oscar for Most Alarm Bells, The Endangered Generation? would definitely be nominated.
One of the interviewees, British journalist and enviro-activist George Monbiot, has to break his answer with a lengthy pause, choking with emotion and frustration when he describes how he’s been sounding the alarm for over three decades. Like a bad dream, Monbiot felt he’d been screaming “an emergency is coming!” but no sound was coming out.
We were fortunate to check out a special screening of The Endangered Generation? followed by a Q&A with director Celeste Geer, where we asked Celeste that very question about hope. When we see leaders & intellectuals like George Monbiot literally in tears, what does it say about our climate future?
Celeste was quick to point to the optimism of the younger generation of climate scientists, activists and messengers who seem collectively driven by a white-hot engine of hope and determination. Far from wallowing in despair, they’re making noise and getting s**t done!
People like Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez. Like Agar, he’s from Panama, and at just 29 he was their lead negotiator at the COP26 - the youngest ever to represent a country at a U.N. climate summit. In an interview with TIME Magazine, Gómez compared his age to the average inside the room - around 60. “We’re talking about [targets] in 2060, 2070 and none of these guys are going to be around,” he said. “If other countries gave young people the mic like Panama is doing, we’d solve this in a few minutes.”
You mentioned ‘global connection’... what other places are explored in The Endangered Generation?
Glad you asked! Intercut with Agar & Tamsin’s trek, the documentary takes us across four continents to introduce us to experts who, each in their own ways, are using their skills and resources to highlight our connection to a fragile world. It’s like a showbag of travel odysseys in one film. Across the film’s runtime, we meet:
- Environmental artist Joe Michael, who finds a way to bring the awe and wonder he felt photographing the icy expanses of Antarctica back to people in cities around the world. The projection techniques he develops - resulting in huge glacier-scapes being projected onto city buildings - is an eye-opening coalescence of nature and mankind.
- Indigenous Songman Fred Leone returns home to K’Gari island in Australia to try to save his traditional language from extinction. He’s determined to preserve the knowledge of survival that it contains for future generations, and turns to some modern 3D technology to help his quest.
- Environmental activist George Monbiot (mentioned above) heads to COP26 in Scotland to try to sway the opinions of global figureheads. Frustrated by the lack of action, he finds hope in a new generation of young, First Nations and female leaders - including Agar - who are growing in power and confidence on the streets outside.
Oh, and fun fact: these stories are tied together with emotive narration by Oscar-winning actress and climate change activist Laura Dern, who lyrically and powerfully guides us through the messages that emerge. It’s a dusting of star power on top of an already immersive and at times, wondrous ride.
What do the reviews say about The Endangered Generation?
- “An inspiring film that offers a compelling new window into the biggest story of our time” ~ Simon Mundy, Financial Times
- “A moving, and surprisingly joyous, exploration of who we are and how we relate to the natural world that defines us” ~ Cinema Australia
- “An epic, cross-country journey… you’re treated to awe-inspiring natural landscapes like lush Panamanian jungles, arctic ice shelves and large swathes of desert” ~ Time Out
Fully on board, or disagree big time? We’d love to hear your take. Leave a review to share your thoughts with the good.film community!
So… what’s the takeaway from The Endangered Generation?
If there’s one key understanding that’s emerged from the climate crisis, it’s that we’re more aware than ever of the functioning of our ecosystem as a whole. The whole “butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon” idea may be a metaphor, but it’s not a million miles off base: on our blue-green rock, everything is connected.
It’s a bleak irony that we’re only now waking up to this realisation in the western world, while Indigenous cultures have built their stories, their knowledge and their respect around our interconnected ecology for dozens of generations. The nations with the most power on Earth have now come to value these First Nations learnings - but has that new valuation come too late? (there’s that intentional question mark again…)
It’s undoubtedly the question of our generation. And Celeste’s documentary follows the actions of the hunters of truth - from the worlds of science, art and ecology - who are trying to answer it. Can we overcome our tribal natures and piece together our understandings from all of these worlds, to find a stable and sustainable place for ourselves on this planet?
As The Endangered Generation? shows, there’s an immense and growing urge to meet that challenge. An excitement to buck the norms, using creative action, for the sake of our global survival. “We find ourselves with a unique opportunity,” says Celeste. “I want to inspire audiences. I want them to see that the change we need is not only possible - it’s already in play.”
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