Paper short abstract:

As vulnerable nonhumans, bee pollinator populations are declining worldwide. Danilo, the natural beekeeper with whom I developed my multispecies ethnography, acknowledges the vulnerability of these nonhumans and developed a bee-centric approach to Apis mellifera in his natural apiary.

Paper long abstract:

In the natural apiary", filmed together with natural beekeeper Danilo Colomela in the island of Sicily (Italy), is an immersive cinematic experience into the practice of natural beekeeping. Through experimental aesthetics, the film aims to sensorially explore the landscape of the natural apiary and the human engagement with the more-than-human world of Apis Mellifera. The Anthropocene is the new geological epoch that situates humans as the main force determining the future of the earth. As vulnerable nonhumans, bee pollinator populations are declining worldwide. Danilo, the natural beekeeper with whom I developed my multispecies ethnography, acknowledges the vulnerability of these nonhumans and developed a bee-centric approach to Apis mellifera in his natural apiary. Cinema has a unique affinity with the Anthropocene, given its origins in the materials and technologies produced by the Industrial Revolution. Such affinity runs even deeper as cinematic production involved artificial world-making, unnatural weather and multiple eco-cataclysms, allowing the viewers to immerse within anthropogenic environments. And yet, as I argue, moving images can revivify our multispecies relationship to the world by enabling us to imagine better attentive practices for a multispecies future.