Part of Oliver Ressler´s series "Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart", this film on the ZAD focuses on Europe’s largest autonomous territory, located close to Nantes in France. The ZAD (zone to defend) emerged from the struggle against a new airport. In 2012 the French state’s attempt to evict the zone was fiercely resisted by more than 40.000 people. The police have not set foot there since. Today 250 people in 60 collectives live permanently at the ZAD occupying the wetlands, fields and forests. The ZAD is a successful example of the way resistance and the creation of alternatives need to happen at the same time. While people take back control over their lives with self-organized bakeries, workshops, a brewery, medicinal herb gardens, a rap studio, weekly newspaper and a library, they hinder the construction of an unnecessary, ecologically disastrous airport project. The film is built around a group discussion with activists living at the ZAD.

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.