The Arc of Oblivion
Director: Ian Cheney Run Time: 98 min. Rating: Not Rated Release Year: 2023
Starring: Kirsten Johnson, Werner Herzog
From Executive Producer Werner Herzog & Academy Award-Nominated Sandbox Films, The Arc of Oblivion explores a quirk of humankind: in a universe that erases its tracks, we humans are hellbent on leaving a trace.
Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker’s quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield–to salt mines in the Alps, fjords in the Arctic, and ancient libraries in the Sahara–to illuminate the strange world of archives, record-keeping, and memory. Playfully weaving stop-motion animation, spellbinding cinematography and fascinating interviews from the director’s inner circle and experts in the fields of science, culture and art–including documentarians Werner Herzog and Kirsten Johnson–The Arc of Oblivion reveals how nature inspires the human drive behind filmmaking.