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THE TROUBLE WITH NATURE
BY ILLUM JACOBI language: ENGLISH DENMARK/France 95 MINUTES |
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WITH ANTONY LANGDON, NATHALIA ACEVEDO
SyNOPSIS The year 1769. The philosopher Edmund Burke has fled London, debt collectors and a ramping midlife crisis to go on a grandtour of the Alps to rewrite his book on the Sublime in this 18. century roadmovie. Stakes are high - Burke has lost everything in risky colonial investments and his future depends on the success of the new edition of his youth masterpiece and his bold face-to-face meeting with nature. Having lost his staff he is traveling only with a native servant on loan from his brother’s plantation in the west indies. The trip is a disaster - Burke has never been outside the city and finds himself lost in Provence struggling to even find the Alps. Furthermore he discovers that he hates nature - it stings, itches and fails to give him any enlightenment. Meanwhile his servant is deeply involved with everything around her and Burke grows bitter and jealous of her easy connection to the wild elements. Burke’s increasingly desperate and pathetic attempt to unlock the mysteries of the sublime, turns suicidal when he discovers a glacier of sparkling ice that leads up to a divine snow covered peak that he begins to climb thinking he can prove himself the master of nature and revenge the discomforts it has bestowed upon him. In ‘The Trouble with Nature’ one man’s failure to comprehend nature mirrors our own. It is a highly fictional and absurd allegory of our human relation to the natural world starring one of the principal architects of modern capitalist thinking - Edmund Burke (1729 -1797) DIRECTOR's VISION I am deeply confused by my experiences in the mountains. Sometimes I have felt a mystic connection to something that seems so ancient and eternal. Like nothing and everything at the same time. Other times I felt lost like an alien on my own planet. For years I kept going deeper and deeper into the wilderness, sometime for months, often alone. Perhaps I was trying to scratch my skin in hopes of a rash that might, for a brief moment, prove that I was part of it. In an attempt to understand this search for connection I am now making a series of feature films. This first one takes us back to the 18th century when people first began to identify the sublime. Dwarfed by the subject itself, I decided to move quickly and make a small film with some friends in the Alps before ambitions would compromise the project. Edmund Burke, a political philosopher who originated the term ‘sublime’ becomes the victim of these fantasies and is re-imagined in the image of our modern self: a man lost in nature, trying to impose his ego and ambitions on the natural world. Like us, he looks to nature to reaffirm his own importance, but finds only his own insignificance. ‘The Trouble With Nature’ is a story about that inescapable conflict between the indifference of the natural world and the ambition in our own human nature. A conflict reaching a new and terrifying climax as we speak. |
Directors Bio
Jacobi comes from a background in mountaineering and long expeditions into the Arctic and Amazon. He worked as a high altitude cameraman before launching his own expeditions to remote mountain ranges concluding in a 2.500 km long traverse of the North Coast of Greenland. Later he studied Cinematography at the Danish Film School and began to make films with scientists and artists studying our relationship to nature. This theme is now continued in the form of fiction with a series of feature projects in development based on his own experiences in the wilderness. His first film “The Trouble With Nature” is made in the restless spirit of the romantic era and shoot with just 2 actors in remote regions of the Alps. Screening times at IFFR: Sun 26 Jan - 07:30PM - Cinerama 4 - Press & Industry Mon 27 Jan - 08:45PM - Pathé 4 - with Q&A Tue 28 Jan - 03:30PM - Lantaren Venster 1 - with Q&A Thu 30 Jan - 10:15PM - Pathé 2 ATTENDING TALENT Illum Jacobi (director) Jan. 24-29 Antony Langdon (main actor, Edmund Burke) Jan 26-29 Nathalia Acevedo (main actress, Awak) Jan 26-29 Please send your interview requests to [email protected] Producers: Illum Jacobi, Xavier Rocher, Marina Perales Marhuenda, Katja Adomeit Production company: ADOMEIT FILM LA FABRICA NOCTURNA CINÉMA International Sales: LA FABRICA NOCTURNA CINÉMA 
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