Victor Kossakovsky / Germany/Netherlands/Argentina/Chile / 2011 / 104 mins

Victor Kossakovsky’s visually stunning meditation on our planet first appeared on UK screens at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011. Two years on and it is finally scheduled for wider release on November 22nd. Discerning cinema fans would be wise to mark that date in their diaries now.

Antipodes are diametrically opposed geographical points. Less than 30% of the earth’s land is antipodal to land (the exact number varies with the tides). Kossakovsky explores four of these rare pairings for his documentary. The film is anchored by the tranquil life and philosophical musings of the Perez brothers, third-generation tollkeepers of a floating bridge in rural Argentina. A bustling ferry terminal in smoggy Shanghai truly does feel like a world away. Yet a lone Patagonian sheep farmer and a Russian mother and daughter inhabit landscapes which feel equally vast, desolate and starkly beautiful despite being on opposite sides of the planet.

With little dialogue and no narrative, ¡Vivan las Antipodas! relies on the viewer to make the connections between people and places that feel disparate, yet often strangely connected. It’s a visual poem, a hymn to the planet that connects us all and the geography that defines us.