World of Walls

To evoke and imagine the near future, we decided to set our documentary feature project World of Walls in the environment of extreme social divisions and escalating climate crisis. The story takes place in an unspecified country that is being destroyed by continuous environmental disasters, located in today’s South Africa, close to Pretoria - Johannesburg. The rich are living inside strictly protected luxury estates with secure infrastructure, while the rest of the world survives on scarce resources on the other side of the wall. People knew these catastrophes were coming years in advance but ignored the fact. The dystopian reality is revealed through the curious eyes of the two child protagonists. At the beginning, the climate catastrophe affects Lorraine’s and Elizabeth’s worlds only subliminally, but as the film moves forward, the severity of incidents begins to escalate and thus increases the tension and the collective concern about the safety of the children. We put these disturbing scenes in contrast with children’s games and intimate interactions with their friends and parents. The threat of “force majeure” is always present, limiting their usual daily activities and infusing the overall mood of the community with fear and anxiety. Confronted with everyday disasters, the girls are trying to learn about the causes that brought the world to the threshold of climate catastrophe. At some point, they come to understand that it is also their parents who allow the ongoing destruction of the planet, making their children’s lives unbearable.