Petropolis – Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands

Alberto Canada. In an area of outstanding natural beauty, a land of rivers, mountains, and pristine forests, one of the world's largest bitumen mining sites operates on a natural tar deposit as large as England. The impact of the operations on the area's water, air, landscape and climate is devastating, yet because the area is so vast, the size of the environmental impact footprint is hard to measure. By means of aerial photography from a helicopter, the film capture images which, while accompanied by a hypnotic-like music, render the idea of how today's world is dominated by the supreme power of petroleum.