Synopsis EN

Spanning the forests of Germany, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kukata Miti is a documentary fairy tale that takes the viewer on a cinematographic journey through landscapes of loss and intensified timber exploitation.

This layered work of visual and political anthropology explores the diverse practices, tools and motives behind logging, shedding light on the historical and economic disparities between the West and the Global South as well as their shared impulse to extract natural resources.

Structured in chapters, the film reveals different ideas of what a forest can be: a site of mechanised extraction, a changing ecosystem in dialogue with human presence, and an ancestral entity harbouring dark forces or offering protection.

In between, the film follows migrant families in Germany's Bergisches Land, a region devastated by tree pests, creating a surprising feedback loop between European monoculture forests, tropical logging frontiers and the precarious lives that connect them.

With: inhabitants of forest regions in Germany, Indonesia and DR Congo, migrant families from Bergisches Land (not individually credited).