What happens to the food we digest after it leaves our bodies? Is excrement waste or a useful resource? Looking for answers, Rubén Abruña travels through sixteen cities on four continents and finds out that what is supposed to be a solution – that is being applied worldwide – is a living nightmare. We use what remains from the treatment process as a plant fertilizer that contains heavy metals and toxic chemicals. But there are other options: from the Poop Pirates in Uganda to decentralised sewage treatment plants in Hamburg, Rubén Abruña learns how human faeces can be turned into electricity and fertiliser. Could our excrement be utilised to feed the world and slow down the climate crisis?
Valentin Thurn
Valentin Thurn is director and producer of documentaries for TV and cinema, based in Cologne, Germany. His documentary “Taste the Waste” won 20 international awards such as the German Environmental Media Award and the Eating City Special Award. His film “10 Billion – What’s on your plate?” won the German Nature Film Award and many others and was declared the most successful German cinema documentary in 2015. In the last 25 years Valentin Thurn realized more than 50 documentaries for ARD, ZDF and ARTE, among them “I Am Al Qaeda” that has been nominated for the German TV Award in 2006. In 2012 he was one of the founders of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ).
Rubén Abruña
Rubén Abruña
Two decades ago, I experienced a sanitation epiphany in my homeland Puerto Rico when I used a compost toilet. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were no unpleasant odors after doing my business, no need to use drinking water, and my excrement was used to fertilize a vegetable garden.
Years later, I made a 52-minute film titled "La Casa Ausente / The Absent House” (2013) about the house that introduced me to the compost toilet. Despite its success, I continued to wonder why compost toilets are not widely used.
That led me in 2014 to embark on a research project that culminated in the film “Holy Shit: Can Poop Save The World?” released in 2023, and screening at the HRFF Berlin.
Gefolgt von Filmgespräch mit / Followed by film talk with Patricia Arquette, Alisa Keesey, Florian Augustin and Valentin Thurn.
Mit Liveaufführung von / With live performance by Iris Lamouyette.
Gefolgt von Filmgespräch mit / Followed by film talk with Rubén Abruña, Patricia Arquette, Alisa Keesey, Florian Augustin and Valentin Thurn.
Mit Liveaufführung von / With live performance by Iris Lamouyette.
Valentin Thurn
Valentin Thurn is director and producer of documentaries for TV and cinema, based in Cologne, Germany. His documentary “Taste the Waste” won 20 international awards such as the German Environmental Media Award and the Eating City Special Award. His film “10 Billion – What’s on your plate?” won the German Nature Film Award and many others and was declared the most successful German cinema documentary in 2015. In the last 25 years Valentin Thurn realized more than 50 documentaries for ARD, ZDF and ARTE, among them “I Am Al Qaeda” that has been nominated for the German TV Award in 2006. In 2012 he was one of the founders of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ).
Rubén Abruña
Rubén Abruña
Two decades ago, I experienced a sanitation epiphany in my homeland Puerto Rico when I used a compost toilet. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were no unpleasant odors after doing my business, no need to use drinking water, and my excrement was used to fertilize a vegetable garden.
Years later, I made a 52-minute film titled "La Casa Ausente / The Absent House” (2013) about the house that introduced me to the compost toilet. Despite its success, I continued to wonder why compost toilets are not widely used.
That led me in 2014 to embark on a research project that culminated in the film “Holy Shit: Can Poop Save The World?” released in 2023, and screening at the HRFF Berlin.
