05/05/2026 - Carlos Casas reinterprets disaster cinema through an organic, immersive lens in a dialogue-free film whose striking sound and imagery underscore human fragility

Screened in the Canarias Cinema section (where two of its producers, Helena Girón and Samuel H Delgado, hail from the Canary Islands) at the 25th Las Palmas International Film Festival, Krakatoa offers a rather unusual experience in a cinema. Its director and screenwriter, Carlos Casas, known for the feature films Hunters Since the Beginning of Time and Cemetery, as well as his installations and audiovisual works, brings that talent to the conception of his latest project. The film was screened in the industry section of this same festival five years ago, had its world premiere in the Harbour section of the most recent IFFR, and recently won the Audience Award at Punto de Vista.

Krakatoa opens with its sole protagonist, Kesuma — a sailor from Java played by Roni Hensilayah — bathed in the bluish light of the surrounding ocean as he lives on a vast floating platform made of logs and bamboo.  His routine is meticulous, slow and stress-free: preparing food, attempting to fish, resting… until a sudden flash of red light transforms everything.

A tsunami violently sweeps the man into the sea. After battling the raging waves, he washes ashore on a deserted beach, wandering aimlessly, like a Robinson Crusoe in hell, whilst the volcano of the title erupts. The central part of this concise yet intense 79-minute film follows his journey through a series of landscapes as he struggles to survive the cataclysm, living off coconuts until he discovers something that leads him into the darkness of a cave.

This marks the beginning of the film’s third and final act: a descent into hell where the beauty of magma, smoke and ash clouds collides with their own ferocity. Mythology and nature intertwine in flashes and bursts of light which, as a warning before the screening notes, may affect viewers sensitive to light and may cause the audience to look away from the screen, experiencing something akin to the fisherman’s own disorienting journey to the centre of the Earth, where he is reduced to an insignificant human being.

Filmed in Indonesia – home to the real Krakatoa volcano, whose legendary 1883 eruption, the largest ever recorded, inspired the film – and in Iceland, the film is being screened – as it was in Rotterdam (read more) and is currently being shown at the Play -Doc festival in Tui (Pontevedra), with an immersive art installation that expands the scope of the experience. It incorporates elements impossible to use in conventional cinemas, such as vibrations and physical movement of the audience.

For all these reasons, this is not your typical big-budget disaster film designed to provoke tears or emotional reconciliation among a large ensemble cast in the wake of the trauma they have endured. Instead, it is something more intimate, psychedelic, humble, hybrid and experimental, – a work that continues to resonate in the ears (thanks to the sound design by Nicolas Becker, Oscar winner for Sound of Metal), the eyes and the mind. It invites ecological, historical and humanistic reflection.

Krakatoa is produced by Spanish companies La Banda Negra and Filmika Galaika, French company Map Productions, British company AMI – Artist Moving Image and Polish company Etnograf. Its international sales are handled by Gargantua Film Distribution.

(Translated from Spanish)