Urth
Films by Ben Rivers
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19m
Directed by Ben Rivers | 19 mins | 2016
Written by the science-fiction author Mark von Schlegell and filmed on location at the Biosphere 2 complex in Arizona, site of one of the twentieth century’s most infamous utopian experiments, "Urth" unfolds according to the logbook of a grad student—the last scientist in the complex, and perhaps the last woman on the planet—as she meditates upon the practical and psychological difficulties of existence in a closed environment.
Up Next in Films by Ben Rivers
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Ghost Strata
Directed by Ben Rivers | 46 mins | 2019
An elliptical travelogue buoyed by the poetry of W.S. Merwin. Fernando Pessoa, and Muriel Rukeyser, "Ghost Strata" is divided into 12 sections, one for each month of the year over which it was shot. As he roves, Rivers trains his camera on piquant details, ... -
Look Then Below
Directed by Ben Rivers | 22 mins | 2019
The final installment of a hypnagogic trilogy created with sci-fi author Mark von Schlegel, following "Slow Action" (2010) and "Urth" (2016), "Look Then Below" is structured as a future explorer’s diary, its strange and haunting subterranean landscapes capt... -
Ijen/London
Directed by Ben Rivers | 7 mins | 2022
On a quest for a mythical city, a young woman finds only a vast toxic swamp of sulphurous flames and chemical smoke. With Herbert Read’s poem “The Autumn of the World” drifting across this devastated landscape, Rivers creates a bleak, beautiful experience th...
