Humboldt USA – Films – Visions du Réel

G. Anthony Svatek
United States | 2026 | 89 min
World premiere
Languages : English, German
Subtitles : French, English

At the beginning of the 19th century, Alexander von Humboldt proposed a radical idea thatis once again gaining popularity in the context of the climate emergency: to consider nature as a “network of interconnected lives”. Following in his footsteps in the United States, from the ancient redwood forests to the bright lights of Nevada, Humboldt USA crafts a timely and playful love letter to the German naturalist.

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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