Shown in Generation Kplus at the Berlinale, Robin Petré’s Only on Earth [+lire aussi :
interview : Robin Petré
interview : Robin Petré
fiche film] heads to southern Galicia, prone to wildfires and home to wild horses. While cowboy culture and people’s love for nature are still very much alive, change – and destruction – is unstoppable. Or is it?

Cineuropa: Wildfires recently took over the news. Were you aware of how universal this problem is, or were you just focusing on Galicia?
Robin Petré: I couldn’t have predicted the urgency of this film. There’s so much focus on the USA these days – because of the fires, because of the election. In that regard, my film feels timelier than ever, but I also don’t think it’s connected to only one place. These unpredictable fires are spreading. It’s not a Galician issue or even a Spanish one; it’s a world issue.

Still, you show a place that’s very specific. Did it take you a while to be accepted there?
It’s very much a landscape film. I’m Danish-Swedish, and I would spend my childhood summers in Sweden. There’s something similar about these two landscapes, even though they are so far from each other. It just resonated with me. Later, I was told by some Galicians that they are known for being a bit reserved, not unlike Scandinavians. I’ve never experienced it myself. I always felt very welcomed.

Over there, people value connections – they value their communities and extended families. Pedro, our little aspiring cowboy, goes to rodeos with his family every summer. You go there and talk to people, and if they feel you’re really interested in this tradition, they introduce you to others. Suddenly, the door opened for us, leading to this whole community.

The lifestyle you’re showing has become quite fashionable: the whole Yellowstone phenomenon is built around this dream. Why do you think people want to protect it, even though it’s so difficult to sustain?
I think it’s a very human thing to feel a sense of belonging to a certain culture and have traditions you pass on to the next generations. This culture around wild horses in Galicia, it really unites people. They don’t want to give it up. The horses have been a part of this landscape for centuries. Americans also don’t want to give up the idea of the frontier, the cowboy culture. We identify who we are according to our surroundings. These horses and these traditions, the nature there… It’s so important to the Galician soul.

Despite the struggle and the dangerous situations, there’s more sadness here than fear. When you show situations that are very extreme, how do you approach them?
We stayed close to the firefighters, and of course, these situations are real. Nothing is staged. The more dangerous the situation and the more intense it gets, the less you speak. If a firefighter doesn’t say anything, the risk is at its peak. If someone yells, asking for a hose, you know things are under control. Although they never actually yell.

In fictional films, it’s portrayed in a completely different way. But they just become so quiet. I love this contradiction. I love the strangeness of how calm their voices sound when they’re delivering a message about a fire that’s basically unstoppable at this point. Then you have another point of view: that of the villagers, of the people who live there. When disaster strikes and you can’t do anything, you are just watching the fire. There are those who fight back and those who film it with their phones. They are completely stoic.

I think this kind of destruction can hypnotise you.
Especially fire, because it’s such a beautiful disaster. We tried to emphasise it with all these wide takes. You are standing there with other people, watching this disastrous spectacle, which is fascinating and frightening. You remain passive as the world burns, basically.

Do you think this world, and this culture, will survive? Or will it only exist as something for tourists?
The locals, and the people I’ve been filming with, want to be hopeful. They want to preserve wild horses and nature, but the waves of change are so massive. What it all comes down to is the same old story of money trumping anything else. For example, windmills are a source of sustainable energy, but when somebody smells business, they put too many of them in a place that used to be a thriving habitat for so many species.

The horses – and their population has gone down by more than half – become less wild because when you construct windmills, you need roads leading to them. I was told that 30 years ago, if a wild horse saw a car, you would barely notice its shadow – that’s how fast they would run. Now, they are becoming more used to them. It’s very subtle, and someone who comes from the outside probably wouldn’t even notice. But it means that something that used to be wild is becoming semi-domesticated or at least more controlled. The landscapes and the culture there are changing, and that change is not going to stop. We need to give more thought to how we want to approach this shift.