Lonely Oaks - English subtitled
In the middle of violent clashes between environmental activists and police, film student Steffen Meyn died in a tragic accident. Lonely Oaks documents the troubled occupation of Germany’s Hambach Forest.
For the past ten years, environmental activists have been occupying the Hambach Forest, an ancient forest between Cologne and Aachen. The reason is that energy company RWE planned to clear the forest to expand the nearby brown coal mine. In 2018, police attempted to take down over fifty tree houses in an operation courts later declared illegal. During the evictions, a tragic accident occurred. Film student Steffen Meyn, who was filming the events at the site, fell from one of the tree houses and died.
This documentary is based on footage Steffen shot over two years spent in the Hambach Forest. Steffen, with his 360° camera constantly rigged to his helmet, is enthusiastic about the environmentalists’ solidarity but struggles to take a stance on the radical nature of the protests. LONELY OAKS offers some very personal insights and highlights the paradoxes and hardships of an activist’s life: political efficacy versus self-sacrifice, police brutality and militancy, idealism versus painful reality.