Limity jsme my, the latest part of Oliver Ressler´s film series "Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart", leads us directly into the blockade of Bílina coal mine in the Czech Republic. 280 of approximately 400 activists taking part were detained. The camera follows a group of activists awaiting deportation inside a police kettle, against the backdrop of a landscape defaced by lignite strip-mining. While the screen shows images filmed from inside a prisoner transport vehicle, we hear the voice of a semi-fictional character, reflecting on mass civil disobedience.

Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart

An ongoing film project by Oliver Ressler (2016-2019)

Not too long ago, global warming was science fiction. Now it has become hard science, and a reality we already live in. The latest scientific reports suggest that the planet may be approaching multiple thresholds of irreversible damage faster than was ever anticipated. The title “Everything’s coming together while everything’s falling apart” refers to a situation in which all the technology needed to end the age of fossil fuel already exists. Whether the present ecological, social and economic crisis will be overcome is primarily a question of political power.

The climate justice movement is now stronger than ever. It obstructed multiple pipeline projects. It stopped Arctic drilling and blocked fracking all over the globe. Coal power plants were shut down by resistance, and the divestment movement has had massive successes as well.

The story of this ongoing film project may turn out to be a story of the beginning of the climate revolution, the moment when popular resistance began to reconfigure the world. The project follows the climate justice movement in its struggles to dismantle an economic system heavily dependent on fossil fuels. It records key events for the movement, bringing together many situations, contexts, voices and experiences. There is one film for each event.

Despite the efforts of government and corporate PR to convince us otherwise, whether and when fossil fuels are abandoned will be determined above all by social movements and the degree of pressure they exert on institutions. Powerful structures force us into lives that destroy our livelihood. It is these structures that must be changed, and nothing but our action in common can change them.