BUFFALO TEARS (PRE-PRODUCTION)
"Buffalo Tears" (Working title) is an eco-cinematic journey that intertwines the legacies of transient civilizations with personal histories, delving into the vast and sometimes frightening mysteries of natural spaces and their eternal unknown. Inspired by what I term a “Miyazaki Effect” or Studio Ghibli Effect of emotive worldbuilding, this project ventures beyond traditional narratives through a blend of live-action and animation. It crafts vignettes of a single giant who navigates the blurred lines between human and non-human realms, embodying the intersection of the familiar and the alien, the ancient and the newly imagined. The giant performs as a land artist, a Rammellzee figure.
Drawing from the teachings of Trinh T. Minh-ha, and inspired by the memories of my Jamaican-British grandmother's garden—a site of memory and confrontation with the natural world—this eco-cinema delves into how AI and ecosystems, seen as non-human entities, engage with and are exploited by human desires and fears. It highlights the political ecologies of invasion, empire, capital, and acceleration that shape our environments and ourselves while reimagining AI as a poetic force capable of empathy.