Filmed in the Amazon region and screened for the first time in Geneva, the documentary Revital examines the consequences of exploiting natural resources beyond the planet's capacity for renewal and regeneration. Conceived within the broader ERC research project Synthlives, the film extends that project’s inquiry into the evolving relationship between humans, non-human nature, and rapidly advancing technological systems in extractive economies. Synthlives investigates how synthetic materials, automated mining, and digital governance are transforming the very notion of extraction; Revital brings these concerns into the Amazon, exploring how such global shifts intersect with local experiences of environmental transformation and reforestation.

This radical process of environmental change, historically associated with colonial violence and dispossession in factories, mines, and agro-industrial plantations, has accelerated over the last 100 years with fossil fuel-based production from petrocapitalism and mass consumption. In a last-ditch effort to save the planet's future, more resources need to be mined and extracted to fuel the energy transition necessary to save the world from its own ills, transforming the globe into a “planetary mine” and perpetuating the insatiable thirst for more resources.

The Amazon rainforest has long been at the epicenter of debates about the future of the planet. In a moment of endless and continuous extraction, few places symbolise both the destructive momentum of our times — in the voracious search for timber, gold, or bauxite and in the deforestation induced by agro-industrial pastures — as well as the hopes placed in nature's own ability to regenerate itself. While most representations of the Amazon denounce the uncontrollable forces of deforestation, the irreversibility of this process is rarely questioned.

Revital takes a different view of the problem of environmental crisis and degradation. Rather than solutions based on “degrowth”, theories of tipping points, or the ecomodernist idea of freeing ourselves from natural constraints through technological innovation, the documentary takes the “return of nature” and those who inhabit the forest as its starting point. Revital asks: how can nature regenerate itself in a new paradigm of relations between humans and the environment? Can life be recreated after being destroyed, and can a balance be found between sustainable use of resources and the self-sustainability required for natural reproduction? What roles do humans and technology, popular and scientific knowledge, play in efforts to create and regenerate life?

By documenting regeneration and reforestation efforts, Revital seeks to answer these questions from the perspective of the Amazon while also moving beyond it. If the future of the planet cannot depend solely on the forest, the documentary expands the horizon of what it means to rehabilitate and bring back life, and to regenerate and replenish nature’s energies, from microbes and seeds to mature forests. 
 

Production: Lamparina Filmes
Executive producer: Patrícia Ventura
Direction: Filipe Calvão and Simon Lobach