Man ate the earth
This story is ours.
It's the story of two centuries of astounding progress. Two centuries of industry, inventions, economic development, evolution of our lifestyles and our modes of consumption.
But here, after two hundred years of industrial capitalism, we realize that the impact of man on nature is irreversible. Man has become a telluric force, and the Earth has entered a new geological period. This period bears a name: the Anthropocene, the era of man.
Behind the beautiful history of progress there is in fact another story. A story written by powerful people. More or less inspired political leaders, industrialists, fossil fuels and chemists, lobbyists and financiers of all kinds who, in two centuries, have shaped our way of life without ever ceasing to serve their own interests
| Genre | Documentary |
| Langue | French |
| Executive producers | Cinephage Productions |
| Coproduction | Stenola Productions |
| Partners | ARTE France, the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, RTBF, Tax shelter.be |
"This is a project that came to me gradually, over the years, without me being able to immediately grasp the reason for my attraction to it.
Even before hearing about the concept of the Anthropocene, I was fascinated by the work of certain researchers who compared the functioning of the Earth to that of a living organism.
Like most of us, I helplessly witnessed the emergence of a collective awareness of our ecological predicament. Then the idea of this new geological age spread, I delved into it, and today I find myself on the verge of creating a narrative that unfolds over more than two hundred years of our history.
And it is by tracing this history back that I identified the reason for my desire to make a film. Because there is a constant that runs through most of my previous documentaries, a historical turning point: the shift in the 1980s towards neoliberalism.
I have addressed the impact of this shift in the realm of work, social relations, "Land-use planning, higher education, television… 'The Great Disruption' allows me to trace this turning point back to its origins, to the birth of industrial capitalism and Western imperialism."
Jean-Robert Viallet
Crew
| Written by | Jean-Robert Viallet, Christophe Bonneuil, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz |
| Director | Jean-Robert Viallet |
| Documentalist | Emmanuelle Yacoubi |
| Photography | Jean-Robert Viallet |
| Sound design | Julien Mirzac |
| Editing | Tal Zana |
| Color grading | Alexis Lambotte |
| Music | Marek Hunhap |
| Producer | Victor Ede, Alexandre Cornu |
| Co-producer | Anton Iffland Stettner, Eva Kuperman |