Dark Eden - A tarsand nightmare

Before their double German Film Award nomination for "Seven Winters in Tehran" and "Vergiss meyn nicht" as Best Documentary, Melanie Andernach and Knut Losen produced this stirring oil documentary about one of the biggest environmental crimes of our time. In Fort McMurray, Canada, lies one of the largest and last oil deposits on our planet. The "black gold" magically attracts people from all over the world. Because there is more money to be made from the oil sands than anywhere else. But the price is high: the complex extraction of the oil from the tar sand releases life-threatening substances that poison nature, animals and people. So it is anything but a paradise! It is in this lost place of all places that director Jasmin Herold finds the love of her life, her future co-director Michael Beamish. But when Michael falls seriously ill, the two are suddenly directly affected. Their own nightmare begins. "Dark Eden" is an existential drama about the blessing and curse of oil production. Jasmin Herold and Michael Beamish experience first-hand great hopes, shattered dreams and one of the greatest environmental crimes of our time. Their very personal documentary won the Green Horizons Award for best film on sustainability at the Braunschweig Film Festival and the Artistic Vision Award at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in the USA.