Lungs Lined with Moss
Director
• 2023
Film
+ 3D & VFX
+ Creative Direction
The crushing weight of the future of humanity rests heavy on our shoulders. What will you do to tell others of it?
About the film
Lungs Lined with Moss is a symbolic, fictional documentary that compares two disastrous time periods for humans—the near-future on Earth amidst decayed ecosystems, and the far-future on another planet where we repeat the same mistakes—seen through the lens of fond nostalgia, and boundless compassion for both these peoples.
The haunting question
Uncertainty causes fear when it threatens our ways of thinking — a real, visceral fear of losing our right to think. When the world is burning, there is no question we lose our right to think. And we are firmly set on that path today.
Capitalism works exactly as intended, indecently exacting natural resources without pause or compassion to serve only one purpose: economic growth at a human’s <> ecosystem’s <> planet’s expense.
This is viscerally incompatible with the human narrative: we have always come together to solve our problems and to help each other. We have not been perfect, but it worked, until it didn’t. So will capitalism, until ecosystems collapse in a single lifetime.
Lungs Lined with Moss proposes that acceptance is the first step in correcting our course, and the principal way to preserve our right to think. And in doing so, to preserve the ecosystem we are indelibly connected to.
The choice is a degrowth world, or no world at all.
Making of
Lungs Lined with Moss is a meditation in pointed symbols arranged in a carefully chosen sequence, all revolving around decay as an extant form of life — dead harvesters on desertified farmlands, melting hoarfrost, raging oceans, a hopeful ray of light in nuclear energy, and a new planet in which we choose to remember the people who chose to stay behind.
The visuals and music accrete pointed emotions: pain, fond nostalgia, and the song of interconnected ecosystems that resonates deep within us all.
The crushing weight of the future of humanity rests heavy on our shoulders.
What will you do to tell others of it?
Impact
Lungs Lined with Moss presents a statement that holds weight years after release, and has since won multiple awards that recognize the deep symbolism and poetic storytelling.
Credits
Director — Niranjan Raghu
Colour story — Meghna M
Original soundtrack — Roshan C Machayya
VHS tapes — @voen.void
Graphic design — Shreya Arora
Special thanks to
CM Machayya
Zain Hayat