Después de María
2019 · 26m · España
Directed by Nagore Eceiza
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Hurricane María exposed in a single day how short-term urban policy left Puerto Rico defenceless against climate change, and the island's first climate refugees emerge.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Essay film + climate catastrophe sounds like PBS sanctimony, but Eceiza's refusal to sentimentalize refugees or offer false hope actually cuts against the grain of disaster porn—this is genuinely unsettling in ways the festival consensus will miss.
Después de María sits precisely in the lineage of essayistic documentary inquiry (Farocki, Kiarostami) where formal rigor and political argument become inseparable; the 26 minutes feel architecturally considered, each image and cut a measured intervention on how we're allowed to witness infrastructure failure.
The single decision that haunts here is Eceiza's choice to hold on Puerto Rico's empty streets and damaged buildings without voiceover scaffolding—letting the silence and spatial composition do the climate argument—which is braver and more precise than any testimony could be.