Hot Docs 2024 Review | The Here Now Project

Filmmakers Jon Siskel and Greg Jacobs utilize the power of the moving image as captured by everyday people around the world to document the impact of climate change in the creatively edited and assembled The Here Now Project.

The Here Now Project goes through the year 2021 to depict one of the most volatile weather years on record. Cell phone videos, social media posts, and home movies capture the feelings and fears of people caught unprepared for largely unforeseen and unpredictable extreme weather events. It starts with record setting cold and snow in San Antonio, Texas that knocks out the state’s usually reliable power grid, moves to clouds of locusts awakening in Kenya destroying crops, shifts to extreme heat and forest fires ravaging the normally temperate climate of Lytton, BC; concurrent community destroying, deadly floods in Western Germany and China; dust storms in Brazil; tropical storms bringing New York City to a standstill; even gross looking mucilage (a.k.a. “sea snot”) choking the life out of Turkish seas.

The Here Now Project makes a pointed case that these events are unquestionably connected under the banner of a unifying crisis, not anomalies that climate change deniers claim them to be. Siskel and Jacobs pepper in some news reports for additional context at some points, but the footage provided by The Here Now Project captures these weather events from an unfiltered, on-the-ground perspective. What emerges is more than an assembly of clips, but a larger picture of a world in crisis told by the people forced to live through them without much advanced warning. A lot of the subjects providing footage for The Here Now Project were caught unaware, but when placed together in close proximity, these videos provide a stark alarm bell worth heeding.

Friday, April 26, 2024 – 5:15 pm – Scotiabank 6

Wednesday, May 1, 2024 – 1:45 pm – TIFF Lightbox 2