Indigenous People Struggle to Protect Earth’s Wilderness in Powerful Film 'Earth Defender'

Portraying the life that is lost while protecting nature, ‘Earth Defender’ is a haunting new music film that brings awareness to the plight of Indigenous People’s struggle to protect Earth’s vanishing wilderness – every 48 hours, an Earth Defender goes missing or is murdered while protecting our life support system.

Centred on the story of a father and son who defend their rainforest home in the Sungai Utik community of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, ‘Earth Defender’ is directed by Studio Birthplace and 19-year-old Indigenous filmmaker Kynan Tegar. Carried by Novo Amor’s hauntingly beautiful score, Heckler Singapore joined forces as VFX partner on the striking film.

Led by Heckler Singapore creative director Cody Amos, the Heckler Singapore VFX team got to work on the technically challenging job of recreating the forest’s destruction, including a mesmerising battle scene, a starry night sky, and a detailed sequence where trees fold into themselves as the earth opens up to invite the father into the afterlife.

Enlisting drone plates shot on location, 3D/2D extensions, and a combination of props and CG elements, VFX played an important role in the film’s convincing and powerful portrayal of forest destruction. In one aerial shot, viewers are introduced to the enormous scale of deforestation, and in another, CG birds fall directly from the sky. The hero Earth Defender’s transitions into the afterlife was another detailed component of the post production.

Cody Amos says, “This was the sort of project I wish I could work on every single day. Firstly, the technical VFX challenges were huge! Building a forest in CG is one thing, but getting the whole forest to fall over is completely another. We built a cool system to destroy huge trees and then duplicated them, so we had thousands of trees falling and breaking.

“We also did some sad dead bird simulations and splashes, some epic matte painting work, along with creating a really abstract depiction of our hero moving on to the next life. To be doing such interesting work is already exciting, but to be doing it for a project that is addressing probably the most important issue of our time, the destruction of our natural world, felt like such an honour. And of course, working with the legends at Studio Birthplace is always delightful.”

On the philosophy behind the film, Studio Birthplace co-directors Jorik Dozy and Sil van der Woerd explain that Indigenous and Earth Defender voices must be amplified because they lead some of the most important work on the front line of climate and human rights crises.

Commenting on the production, Jorik said, “We went through a really intense process with the community, doing multiple community meetings, where the whole project was openly discussed.

“As filmmakers, we’re used to having a certain degree of control, but working outdoors with a large community taught us to let go and flow with the moment. When it rained or the river flooded, we adapted. Everything given by the actors – who are all people from the Sungai Utik community – we considered a gift. It brought a beautiful unpredictability.”

Sil adds, “A full month we spent mostly disconnected from the internet, taking our morning showers in the river and spending our evenings on the comfortable wooden floors of the longhouse, amidst the community. We learned so much, not just as filmmakers, but spiritually too, as we started to see how incredibly far our individualistic Western culture has drifted away from living in harmony with the natural world. In a way, we became students, learning what it means to be Indigenous.”

Co-director Kynan Tegar adds, “This film is about the very real problems that exist within our world, the criminalisation and the murder of Earth Defenders. Indigenous Peoples that fought for their land, their forests, their rivers, and gave the biggest sacrifice, which is their life. There are communities whose whole livelihood was taken from them.

“The very part of their identity, which is the nature surrounding them, taken from them, ripped away. That's a story that rang very close to home for me. That's the story that we want to convey.”