The destruction of our planet has reached a point of no return. With capitalism’s unapologetic pursuit of profits above all else catalyses the obliteration of our nature and everything in it—the people and their cultures too—to just be aware of the exploitation of our lands isn’t enough. Everyone that considers the Earth as their home must be radicalized against the normalization of capitalist logic.
Governing powers, too, couldn’t be relied on anymore. If the COVID-19 pandemic can induce governments all over the world to take emergency actions, why can’t a very real and apparent climate deterioration that threatens to kill every single living being on the planet be treated with the same urgency? As resources keep being extracted, and its machines keep contributing to our home’s inevitable inhospitality, we must take immediate action and serve as the means of salvation for our collective ecological sins.
This Is Not Your Garden (2025), in our ever-worsening climate, serves to be a prayer of repentance for our sins against our planet—although to no avail. The prayer remains unheard for there is no greater power that could grant it. This short film reimagines places in the brink of disappearance, capturing what is left of the Guacheneque Páramo and the Macanal Forests Nature Reserve, by “preserving” it digitally using 3D models and rendering it into a pointillist landscape—as if saying that it is unlikely for us to experience it in our reality anymore. In this method of “preservation”, we can glimpse into these places’ biodiversity. But its depiction of Espeletia grandiflora (frailejones), Quercus Humboldtii (Colombian oak), Eucalyptus globulus (white gum), and other species remain as simulacra of what was once easy to access, and most importantly, real and tangible to our human senses. Even with the realization of our ecological sins—shown in the film as a what-if-ism of what can happen in the near future—praying for forgiveness isn’t enough. There is nothing that can reverse the damage done for us—no rulers, no gods, no machines.
With all of this in mind, This Is Not Your Garden manifests into something very pessimistic; as if the only solution that we can come up with is to archive what is left of our biodiversity through the machines built under the system that caused it to diminish in the first place. This prayer of repentance will then only ricochet endlessly in the echo chambers of ecological talking points, ultimately becoming nothing else but that. That is, until material action is done.
The rich, knowing that the damage is already done beyond all recognition, tries to build a god from the machines to save themselves—looking for ways to inhabit Mars or find another planet to turn into their new homes. It is much cheaper for them to seek another planet (and essentially continuing capitalist practices there), than it is for them to save the Earth and every single thing in it. For us normal people, deus ex machina is an impossibility. For us, there is no Planet B. (Timmie) (Ed. Vanis)
Film Details
This Is Not Your Garden (Este no es tu jardín)
Carlos Velandia, Angélica Restrepo | 12 min | 2025 | Colombia
In Competition for Short Documentary
Festival Film Dokumenter 2025
