Belly of a Glacier (2024)
32:52 mins, 2K video, 5.1 surround sound

Cinematography: Ohan Breiding and Sara Kinney
Assistant Camera: Cary Cronenwett
Editing: Katrin Ebersohn
Sound design: Richy Carey
Producer: Alexis Hudgins

Belly of a Glacier is an experimental documentary that explores the theme of ecological care, braiding an ancient ice archive with community-led efforts to protect a glacier from rising temperatures.

In 2019, Iceland constructed the first memorial to mark the death of its Okjökul glacier. Since then, funerals have been held around the world to mark the melting of glacier bodies. These ritualized practices of collective grief perform the intimate entanglement of human and environmental well-being, and amplify the current state of climate emergency.

Belly of a Glacier begins with an ancient ice archive, the U.S. National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL) in Colorado, where ice cores from glaciers are stored. Ice is one of earth’s oldest records of time, as atmospheric debris, including volcanic ash and greenhouse gases, are stored in its air pockets preserving traces of socio-ecological events across time. The project connects two relevant events: First, the recent efforts to preserve glaciers in Switzerland. Every spring, the nearby town of the Rhône Glacier (neighboring Obergoms) residents drape thermal blankets over the five-acres long Rhône Glacier to insulate the Alpine landscape from the rising temperatures. The film concludes with a speculative glacier funeral that takes place in 2050, when scientists predict the Rhône to have fully melted.