{"id":657533,"date":"2026-10-26T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/657533\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T12:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T12:00:08","slug":"an-austrian-filmmaker-documented-la-wildfires-hopes-for-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/657533\/","title":{"rendered":"An Austrian Filmmaker Documented LA Wildfires, Hopes for Conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt is a very different look, listen and feel of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires<\/a> that Austrian filmmaker Lukas Marxt (Among the Palms the Bomb, Or: Looking for Reflections in the Toxic Field of Plenty) brings us in his new experimental documentary. Unlike the busy, nonstop news coverage we saw when the tragic events unfolded, the film takes viewers through different extended scenes of observation, usually shot from steady positions. And although it unspools without talking heads, narration or other commentary beyond an opening text quote from a philosopher, the doc\u2019s title, >1.5\u00b0C: Pyropolitics and the New World, hints that the director will not mind if audiences feel like our collective feet are being held to the fire as we experience the visual and audio journey on which the film takes us.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore so than anything, it feels like an encouragement to help us with what philosopher Michael Marder says in his quote at the start of the film about pyropolitics, or the politics of fire \u2013 the geopolitical and political causes feeding the flames that we watch and the damage they cause. If pyropolitics is \u201cincreasingly dictating the rules of the game today, then it is crucial to learn its language,\u201d Marder\u2019s quote reads. <\/p>\n

\n\t>1.5\u00b0C: Pyropolitics and the New World will give viewers a chance to do so when it premieres on Oct. 27 at the German documentary festival DOK Leipzig, followed by Austria\u2019s Viennale<\/a>, before screening at IDFA in Amsterdam<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tMarxt directed and edited the film, and he handled the camera work together with Carson Davis Brown. In a Zoom conversation with THR, he shared what inspired >1.5\u00b0C: Pyropolitics and the New World and its look and feel, and why pyropolitics can\u2019t just be ignored.<\/p>\n

\n\tMarxt was in California when the fires started, as he has been working for more than seven years around the Salton Sea, close to the Mexican border, where he also shot his film Among the Palms the Bomb, Or: Looking for Reflections in the Toxic Field of Plenty. \u201cIt was a big ecological disaster when it collapsed in the \u201970s because of agricultural runoff,\u201d the filmmaker tells THR. \u201cThat created an algae bloom, and all fish and birds died. And then everybody moved away. Before that, the area was called the Californian Rivera, where everybody wanted to be and bought properties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Marxt heard about the wildfires, he recalls thinking, \u201cOh my God, what is that? And my first impulse was, I don\u2019t want to film anything like this. I really have no interest in going out and maybe being in someone\u2019s way who is trying to help. I was living in El Sereno, which is close to South Pasadena, so it was not evacuated, but it was always on the brink. But the more we talked with friends and people affected, the more we heard that they had to evacuate. And so, I said: I don\u2019t have to make a film about it, but we should try to document these historic events.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo he and his team went out and started \u201cdocumenting as much as we could during the period of the burning, but our main concern was always to not be in people\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMarxt filmed fires, firefighters, inside a shelter (with a sign highlighting that there was no access for media) and more. \u201cEverything covered by the news, we were not interested in,\u201d he tells THR. \u201cThis is obviously an observational documentary, just depicting this event.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe film starts with the sound of fire, then takes audiences closer to and eventually inside the fire. \u201cAnd then you have this afterburn,\u201d Marxt says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very simple red thread which helped us through the editing.\u201d Watch a trailer for >1,5\u00b0C Pyropolitics and the New World right here.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow about that title? \u201cThe title is much bigger than the film. I hope it is a title which makes you curious, but also a title which invites you to think more,\u201d Marxt explains. \u201cEven though there are no answers in the film itself.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe temperature change referenced in the title is part of the Paris Agreement on climate change adopted in 2015. That international<\/a> treaty saw countries agree to pursue efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels. The filmmaker\u2019s experience so far is that not everybody is aware of the treaty. \u201cThere\u2019s a big difference between the U.S. and European audiences,\u201d he shares. \u201cIn the U.S., a lot of people have no clue what we\u2019re talking about when we talk about 1.5 degrees. The U.S. also signed it, but it is not promoted there as much as in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut wildfires have not only hit L.A. \u201cThe film focuses on this single event, but this is happening everywhere, including in France and on the Iberian Peninsula,\u201d Marxt points out. \u201cAnd the fires are coming closer and closer to the cities. L.A. has been affected by a lot of fires, but all the warning signs of past fires were simply ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat is where pyropolitics come in. \u201cI hope the film [encourages viewers] to dig deeper, because we are shaping the Earth,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd we are shaping everything for maximum profit, including in farming, which changes the natural way and path of a fire. The film can be the start of a thought or a conversation.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tMarxt says that just like his other work, >1.5\u00b0C: Pyropolitics and the New World pushed him into a dystopian space. \u201cI\u2019m always going to the rim of where people got pushed back to, or look at how far you could go and where the borders of industry and activity are,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd lots of times, you end up in wastelands or in an apocalyptic kind of surrounding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLukas Marxt, courtesy of Carson Davis Brown<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker\u2019s focus on environmental and climate challenges created by humans does not mean that he isn\u2019t hopeful that worrying trends can be addressed, but he sees a lot of work and focus ahead. \u201cI\u2019m not the worst doomer around, but it does not look very good at the moment,\u201d he tells THR. \u201cThe future does not look very bright.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMarxt is already working on another film idea, which he plans to co-direct with his >1.5\u00b0C: Pyropolitics and the New World cinematographer colleague Carson Davis Brown, and it doesn\u2019t sound much less apocalyptic. \u201cThere is an open gun range in the hills of the High Desert where people just come in, especially on weekends, where 100, 200 trucks arrive, and just start shooting with no regulation,\u201d the filmmaker says. \u201cThey bring all kinds of targets \u2013 mattresses, tires, cars and whatever \u2013 and they are shooting at them. And then there are people who live there and live from picking up the brass bullet casings. It\u2019s very, very disturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Marxt and his collaborator, the filming process is about immersing themselves in this world to understand it and share the experience with an audience. \u201cOver the past two years, Carson and I have been spending time with this community to understand the people who live there and the alternative economy that has emerged around this place,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have spent over 50 days with them, also sleeping there and making sure we have their trust and willingness to work on this documentary.\u201d It sounds like the new film, just like >1.5\u00b0C: Pyropolitics and the New World, will be made to start conversations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a very different look, listen and feel of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires that Austrian filmmaker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,399,46,115566,397,294504],"class_list":["post-657533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-international","tag-israel","tag-los-angeles-wildfires","tag-movies","tag-viennale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}