Points of Light

Not long ago, countless fireflies swarmed through fields and backyards on summer nights. Today in Iowa, a place known for its uniform landscape and monocultures of corn, fireflies are increasingly rare to find: points of light that blink off just as quickly as they light up in the dark. In POINTS OF LIGHT, filmmaker Annika Juliane Schilling sets out to search for these magical-seeming insects and the reasons for their disappearance. She takes a look at farm work and front lawns, as patterns of exploitation begin to show. In essayistic form, the film goes on to explore resisting forces: a queer couple who cultivate a "hellish" garden. A red prairie flower that attracts fireflies. A sprouting hope.

Keywords

  • Exclusive Docs: New Perspectives
  • Next Generation: HFBK Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg
  • Sooner Exclusives
  • Topic: No Planet B
  • Agriculture
  • Animaux
  • civil society
  • natural

Actors

  • Wendy Herink-Schilling
  • Everett Kreyling
  • Ian MacKenzie Shields

Director

  • Annika Juliane Schilling

Documentary, Independent


27min


12

EN


EN

DE

SV

Germany
United States of America
2024
An experimental documentary about fireflies going extinct, and our relationship to nature.

An experimental documentary about fireflies going extinct, and our relationship to nature.


Not long ago, countless fireflies swarmed through fields and backyards on summer nights. Today in Iowa, a place known for its uniform landscape and monocultures of corn, fireflies are increasingly rare to find: points of light that blink off just as quickly as they light up in the dark.


In POINTS OF LIGHT, filmmaker Annika Juliane Schilling sets out to search for these magical-seeming insects and the reasons for their disappearance. She takes a look at farm work and front lawns, as patterns of exploitation begin to show. In essayistic form, the film goes on to explore resisting forces: a queer couple who cultivate a "hellish" garden. A red prairie flower that attracts fireflies. A sprouting hope.

Cast & Crew