It’s often hard to start conversations about planetary destruction, the Amazon, climate change, Australia and the Arctic on fire, global swine and bird flu pandemics and the extinction of so many species.

The fact is, we are all complicit, simply because we have been born into a time of consumerism, avarice and blind searching. And the only way we are going to make it through this terrifying time as a species is if we work together in harmony with the planet rather than in opposition to it.

The Ghastly Fowl is a stark, beautifully animated short story that sheds light on what human destruction is doing to our beautiful planet. The film paves the way to what looks like a total collapse of life on our planet, only to give way to something completely unexpected. It peels away the layers of the human psyche in a countdown towards the end, which could also be the beginning.

Each number in the film symbolizes a strand of human consciousness, distilled to its essence — reflecting the most catastrophic crimes we’ve committed as a species. But there’s hope: the journey we (humanity) must embark on together is one that offers the possibility of transcending these past wrongs, rising toward a radically new experience of life, in balance with the Earth.

Producer: Kate Pirouet