Anote’s Ark

Trained as a visual anthropologist, photographer Matthieu Rytz makes his stunning debut as a filmmaker with Anote’s Ark, a thought-provoking documentary about the plight of the roughly 100,000 people living on — and now regretfully leaving — Kiribati, a remote Pacific Island nation that is on the frontline of a global environmental crisis. As rising sea levels threaten its citizens with national extinction, Kiribati’s firebrand President Anote Tong races to find a solution to his country’s relocation problems while lobbying the world’s leading “carbon nations” (including China and the United States) to take a more active role in addressing climate change. Cross-cut with President Tong’s world-spanning initiative to save his nation are scenes depicting a young mother (Sermary Tiare)’s extraordinary journey to begin life anew with her husband and six children in New Zealand (where 75 of her country’s environmental refugees gained citizenship in 2014). This aesthetically striking yet heartbreaking film is a must-see for audiences in the United States, especially now that President Trump has declared his intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement (a decision that is scheduled to take effect in 2020). Notably, two other countries that previously had not signed the 2015 accord (Syria and Nicaragua) have decided to join, leaving the United States as the only country excluded from the global effort to mitigate the effects of climate change. Clips of President Obama’s galvanizing speech at the Paris conference as well as captioned text at the end of Anote’s Ark, informing us of an opposition party leader’s recent reversal of President Tong’s environmental policies, highlight how much work remains to be done in order to confront this most pressing, potentially catastrophic global issue.