Shot with small action cameras under extreme conditions, Leviathan lays bare the hellscape of the fishing industry in North America. The cameras capture sloshing seawater, streams of bloody fish slathering on deck, nicotine-fueled seamen wearied by long hours of butchering, ominous flocks of seagulls joining the hunt, and muffled cacophonies of growling machinery. With barely any dialogue, Leviathan’s harrowing scenes are part of daily life for the commercial fleets of New Bedford—the same North American costal town that served as a setting for the 1851 novel Moby Dick. This experimental documentary is not only an immersive audiovisual experience, but an up-close cross section of the perpetual clash between humans and nature.

With only on-screen text, Deep Flight dives into the waters of our everyday. It postulates nature as a vessel for all types of desires and–an inexhaustible entity taken for granted yet rarely given a voice. The work’s oxymoronic title challenges the limitations of human imagination and accentuates the ubiquity of the mysterious titular being, who shares her observations of the human world with icy intelligence. Deep Flight will be presented after Leviathan.

The screening on 3 June will be followed by a post-screening talk in Cantonese with artist Lo Lai Lai.

Lucien Castaing-Taylor (b. 1966, United Kingdom) and Véréna Paravel (b. 1971, Switzerland) are both anthropologists and filmmakers based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 2006, the duo has worked at the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University, an experimental laboratory prompting innovations in ethnographic documentation. They are best known for their collaborative non-fiction films focusing on the environment and human body, including Caniba (2017) and Somniloquies (2017).

Lo Lai Lai Natalie (b. 1983, Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong–based artist whose work consists of moving images, photography, and installations around the themes of nature, agriculture, and sustainability. Lo is a fine arts graduate of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and formerly a travel journalist. She actively explores the Half-Farming, Half-X practice that seeks alternatives to fast-paced urban lifestyles and encourages reconnection with nature through part-time farming.