The Human Factor

Love. Inspiration. Creation. Family. Happiness. Life. It all begins with a Seed. For artist Brian Tortorelli's next project, that seed was the love for his daughter Quinn.

If you could start a conversation with the country, what would you ask?

The film interweaves contemporary narratives with an ancient creation myth to explore the effects of a rapidly changing landscape on lives and livelihood. Set in a rich and bio-diverse region in South India, we journey through a land that is witnessing drastic transformation in the name of 'development'. A woman's concern over the disappearance of medicinal plants from the forest, a farmer's commitment to growing indigenous varieties of rice organically and a cash crop cultivator's struggle to survive amidst farmers' suicides, offer fresh insights into shifting relations between people, knowledge systems and environment. As hills flatten, forests disappear and knowledge systems are forgotten, the film reminds us that this diversity could disappear forever, to be replaced by unsustainable alternatives.

In Madrid, a Cuban family has been camping in a square for months. In the past dependent upon the communist regime that molded it, the family now makes a rude apprenticeship of a capitalist society that it had once dreamed of..

This project is part of an approach to question disease and the continuity of life after these uncertain times. It relies on an interview conducted in an intimate setting with the director's mother who was affected by cancer for many years. It was recorded without her knowledge, making the talk even more spontaneous, true and authentic. The story she tells us appears as a pure hint of life captured by the camera. The physical marks she has testify of her fight for survival. Her point of vue intend to be positive on what is today a victory of the body over the disease.