Humboldt USA – Films – Visions du Réel

G. Anthony Svatek
Vereinigte Staaten | 2026 | 89 min
Weltpremiere
Sprachen : Englisch, Deutsch
Untertitel : Französisch, Englisch

Zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts trug Alexander von Humboldt eine radikale Idee vor, die im Zusammenhang mit der Klimakrise wieder an Aktualität gewinnt: die Natur als ein „Netzwerk miteinander verbundener Leben“ zu betrachten. Humboldt USA folgt seinen Spuren durch die Vereinigten Staaten, von den alten Redwood-Wäldern bis zu den Lichtern von Nevada – ein zeitgemässer und verspielter Liebesbrief an den deutschen Naturforscher.

In the early 19th century, the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, a true adventurer, spent several years travelling across the Americas, measuring, collecting and observing the fauna and flora, as well as the mountains and waterways. Combining hard science with a sensitive approach infused with Romanticism and a poetic sensibility – he was a friend of Goethe – he developed a holistic understanding of nature, regarding it as an interdependent “network of interconnected lives”. And while he was somewhat overshadowed by Darwin and his brutal vision of nature shaped by natural selection, Humboldt’s radical perspective resonates anew today in the face of the climate emergency and the urgent need to reconnect our networks. Following in his footsteps across the United States, from the national parks and millennial sequoias to the LED mirages of casinos, from protests against a highway project to the helicopter-supported reintroduction of bighorn sheep in the Nevada desert, Humboldt USA composes a love letter to the naturalist while exploring with him our rocky relationships with infrastructure, landscapes and technology.

Mourad-Anis Moussa

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