11/03/2026 - Slovak director Tomáš Krupa’s new doc follows four communities across the globe confronting life on a rapidly changing planet

Cineuropa can exclusively unveil the first trailer, the official poster and a number of clips for We Have to Survive [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the latest documentary by Slovak filmmaker Tomáš Krupa, of The Good Death [+see also:
trailer
interview: Tomáš Krupa
film profile] fame, which will world-premiere in the Open Horizons section of the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (5-15 March). Shot across multiple continents over a six-year period, the film traces how communities living on the front lines of environmental change are adapting to the realities of a warming planet. Rather than approaching climate change from a purely scientific perspective, Krupa’s documentary foregrounds the everyday resilience of people whose lives are already being shaped by shifting environmental conditions.

Across four distant locations, the Outer Banks in North Carolina, the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, the underground town of Coober Pedy in Australia and the icy shores of southern Greenland, the film presents a mosaic of character-driven stories. A coastal community watches the ocean gradually reclaim the land; a Mongolian family plants trees to hold back advancing desert sands; residents in the Australian outback build their lives underground to escape the relentless heat; and Greenlandic fishermen navigate the uncertainties of melting ice and changing traditions.

“This is not a project about the scientific nature of global warming; it is a film about what global warming means for our way of life,” Krupa explains. “The world we live in will not end; it will change. Adaptation will be a challenging transition, but I believe it is the key principle for the continuation of civilisation.”

We Have to Survive was filmed in a wide range of extreme environments, from Arctic coastal settlements to desert landscapes and climate-exposed shorelines. The filmmakers followed local protagonists over extended periods, allowing the documentary to capture the gradual transformations shaping their surroundings and livelihoods. Rather than presenting the stories as isolated case studies, the movie connects these distant regions into a broader portrait of a planet in transition, emphasising how local experiences of environmental change resonate across continents. The film was shot by cinematographers Martin Čech and Ondřej Szollos, and edited by Peter Kudlička, with sound design by Miloš Hanzély and a score composed by Dalibor Stroon Kocian, Damien Lefevre and Thomas Stenoff.

We Have to Survive was produced by Tomáš Krupa for Slovakia’s Hailstone, in co-production with Golden Girls Filmproduktion (Austria) and YUZU Productions (France). Its international sales are handled by Taskovski Films.

Check out our exclusive trailer, poster and clips below: