Tomorrow is a Water Palace
2022 · 15m · Belgium
Directed by Juanita Onzaga
Genres: experimental, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Sybille, the last surviving human on a water-depleted planet, traverses barren landscapes and encounters otherworldly entities, attempting to convince the spirit of water to return to Earth.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Onzaga shoots the end of water like a spiritual crisis rather than a disaster — the Super 8 grain turns the apocalypse intimate, and the ancestral futurism framing is genuinely unlike anything else.
Last human on water-depleted planet, Super 8 plus 4K, ancestral cosmology meets ecological crisis. Beasts of the Southern Wild is overpromise territory but the format mix is specific. Cautious.
Super 8mm and 4K together, ecological crisis embedded inside ancestral spiritual cosmology — Onzaga's work has been doing this kind of careful syncretism well, and Embrace of the Serpent is the right register. Locked page, but the structural ambition is real.
Festivals
- International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022