Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, and Nick de Pencier’s Anthropocene trilogy—comprised of Manufactured Landscapes, Watermark, and ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch—are an essential testament to how human beings have radically, rapidly, and dangerously reshaped the face of the natural world. Timed to the opening of The Great Acceleration, a retrospective of Burtynsky’s photography work at the International Center of Photography which sees him exploring similar concerns via the still image, Metrograph welcomes the trio of Canadian filmmakers to screen and discuss these vital, disturbing nonfiction documents.
Learn more and get your tickets
ICP Members receive discounted tickets to the screenings by showing your member card at Metrograph’s box office.
Show your Anthropocene Trilogy x Metrograph movie ticket at ICP for reduced admission to visit the exhibition Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration, on view through September 28, 2025.
Showtimes
Friday, June 20
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch - 7:10 PM
* With an introduction to the film by filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky followed by a Q&A.
Saturday, June 21
Manufactured Landscapes - 2 PM
*With an introduction to the film by filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky and followed by a panel discussion and book signing of Burtynsky’s new book “Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration. (Steidl)”
Watermark - 5:15 PM
* With an introduction to the film by filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky followed by a Q&A.
Friday, June 27
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch - 7:50 PM
Saturday, June 28
Manufactured Landscapes - 2:45 PM
Watermark - 4:35 PM
About the Films
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
A stunning sensory experience and cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is a years-in-the-making feature documentary from the award-winning team behind Manufactured Landscapes (2006) and Watermark (2013) and narrated by Alicia Vikander. The film follows the research of an international body of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group who, after nearly 10 years of research, argue that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch in the mid-twentieth century as a result of profound and lasting human changes to the Earth.
From concrete seawalls in China that now cover 60% of the mainland coast, to the biggest terrestrial machines ever built in Germany, to psychedelic potash mines in Russia’s Ural Mountains, to metal festivals in the closed city of Norilsk, to the devastated Great Barrier Reef in Australia and massive marble quarries in Carrara, the filmmakers have traversed the globe using state of the art camera techniques to document the evidence and experience of human planetary domination. At the intersection of art and science, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch witnesses a critical moment in geological history — bringing a provocative and unforgettable experience of our species's breadth and impact.
Watermark
Watermark is a feature documentary film that brings together diverse stories from around the globe about our relationship with water: how we are drawn to it, what we learn from it, how we use it and the consequences of that use. We see massive floating abalone farms off China’s Fujian coast and the construction site of the biggest arch dam in the world – the Xiluodu, six times the size of the Hoover. We visit the barren desert delta where the mighty Colorado River no longer reaches the ocean, and the water-intensive leather tanneries of Dhaka.
Manufactured Landscapes
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES, directed by Jennifer Baichwal, is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris. The film follows him through China, as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. With breathtaking sequences, such as the opening tracking shot through an almost endless factory, the filmmakers also extend the narratives of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumping grounds of its waste.
About Metrograph
Located two blocks from ICP, Metrograph is the ultimate destination for movie lovers. A special curated world of cinema inspired by the great New York movie theaters of the 1920s and the Commissaries of the Hollywood Studio backlots, Metrograph is a community inhabited by movie professionals screening their work, taking meetings, watching films, collaborating together — an audience built around our shared love of cinema.
Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky working in Northern British Columbia, Canada, 2012. Photo courtesy of Anthropocene Films Inc. © 2018
