Daniel McCabe
United States | 2023 | 94 min
World premiere
Language : Ganda
Subtitles : English, French
Deep in the forests of Uganda, millions of grasshoppers gather to mate in devastating swarms. A group of young men set up a strange contraption at the edge of the crop fields, with customised generators, large quantities of light bulbs, barrels and sheet metal. They can then begin harvesting the grasshoppers, a prized delicacy among city dwellers.
Grasshopper Republic focuses on the strange cycle of grasshopper harvesting in Uganda. When the grasshoppers arrive from the sky – “from the moon”, according to local legend – they are trapped by hunters, who set up giant and dangerous makeshift devices to capture them in swarms, before selling them at markets by the sackload. The film highlights a redeeming yet destructive activity - one that closely links humans with animals, global warming with the destruction of ecosystems, and economic growth with the sustainability of food resources. It is a striking and cinematic spectacle, but Daniel McCabe doesn’t just position himself as a simple observer. He transcribes both the beauty and the monstrosity of the practice while offering an immersive exploration of a singular and local phenomenon from his own Western perspective. He then encourages the viewer to reflect globally on our modern world: its limits, its destruction by humans, and its collapse.
Madeline Robert
This Is Congo, 2017
