Ashes and Snow

A man stands underwater with elephants. A child reads beside a hawk. A woman swims in the same frame as a whale. Ashes and Snow presents these not as documentary but as poetic narrative. The Canadian artist Gregory Colbert made the film as an extension of his photographic project, with narration by Laurence Fishburne and Jeanne Moreau. The project was exhibited in New York in 2005 in the Nomadic Museum, a structure designed for it alone. The building was conceived to travel: the walls made from used shipping containers, the roof and columns from paper tubing. The exhibition has since drawn more than ten million visitors. The film's view of nature is purely aesthetic: no behaviour is explained, no species information is given, only the image is composed. Who it's for: Viewers who like visual art projects, experimental films about the natural world, and sparse narration. Who it's not for: There is no scientific content and the narration leans on a mystical register. How the animals are staged is also open to ethical question.