DOCUMENTARY | 2023 | 113 MIN | USA | DIRECTOR: JOSH FOX | PRODUCERS: MATTHEW SANCHEZ + DIANA CRESPO
The World Premiere of The Edge of Nature by Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning filmmaker Josh Fox was the Opening Night Film at the 2023 Byron Bay Film Festival. Audiences have the opportunity watch this with a special Q&A at Lennox Head.
Scientists have come to call the first 6-8 months of the Covid Pandemic “The Anthropause.” During this time industrial fossil fuel pollution plummeted and for the very first time in history, world wide emissions were reduced enough to halt climate change.
In the midst of the global shut down, Josh Fox, who is suffering from neurological symptoms and cognitive damage from long covid, isolates himself in a one room cabin in the hopes that his beloved Pennsylvania forest can heal him.
During his nine month seclusion he confronts the legacy of genocide and intergenerational trauma that scars the land and his family. His co-stars are a tenacious group of beavers, a young bear mother, howling coyotes and a ton of invasive honey-suckle.
Nature may just teach us how to heal ourselves and the lessons of the Anthropause may just save the world.
Despite the gravity of its subject matter, the film is ultimately a celebration of the human spirit, and a fitting choice to kick off the celebration of life on planet Earth that BBFF represents.
Josh Fox will be attending from New York.
