“See you next year!” a Portuguese fire warden says as he dismantles his control equipment at the end of the season. Humans and nature in southern Europe may be used to forest fires, but that does not change the facts: The ever more massive conflagrations are caused by climate change. We have long been living in the age of fire.

In the Portuguese interior, a forest fire has just devastated a large area. Wounded nature is silent, not a single bird is heard, only the wind that makes the charred tree trunks rustle. But the vegetation recovers astonishingly fast. Where all life seemed to be gone, greenery soon sprouts from the ruined trees. The residents of the affected region are engaged in the reconstruction with great respect for their natural environment. Because plants, too, are sentient creatures. In quiet, almost melancholic, but also hopeful images, the film pays tribute to the strength of the trees and illustrates how essential it would be for humanity to learn to live in harmony with nature again.

For ten years, Belgian photographer and artist Léonard Pongo has been documenting the landscapes of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In his latest work, he enters into a sensual dialogue with them. The precise camera often focuses on light reflections that literally draw us into the moving images, while at the same time revealing the cinematographic apparatus behind them. In combination with the elaborate sound design and the restrained, beautiful music of “Bear Bones, Lay Low”, the solo project of the Belgium-based Venezuelan Ernesto González, the portrait of a landscape emerges which the captivating montage composition turns into a visual, auditive and meditative pleasure.
Nonetheless, “Tales from the Source” is not a traditional “nature film” but an aesthetic positioning inspired by Congolese traditions, art and philosophy which – as the artist himself emphasises – represents the Congolese landscape “as a source rather than a resource.” The result is best described as an experience rather than a representation.