On the other side of the world there is a vast ocean, dotted with small islands that rise up here and there to feed our dreams. Often battered by cyclones or other catastrophes, these tiny dots become extremely volatile. This is the case with Vanuatu, the happy land further away, far from everything we supposedly know and can control and recently devastated by Cyclone Pam, which has irreversibly changed the already fragile ecosystem. To the images of the everyday lives of people living in permanent contact with nature, the debris from boats awaiting the same sunset every day, the stunning natural landscape and the children who play there, the underwater wrecks dating back to the Second World War, and the active volcanoes that transform the skies into swirls of smoke and ashes that can never be filmed again, is added a poem by Henry Michaux, an artist and poet who lived an eternally wandering life. It also speaks of this other side of the world, but in the unedited, unaltered voice of a local girl who can barely pronounce the difficult words in the most widely spoken language there. Ben Rivers has been one of the Curtas authors, a relationship that has had several high points including the screening of “Ah, Liberty”, which won the Best Experimental Film award in 2008 and, more recently, the “Ruins/Rites/Runes” exhibition at the Solar – Cinematic Art Gallery in partnership with Ben Russell, and the parallel programme presented last year. (MM)