Lützerath, Germany: The site that numerous political and activist groups occupied and gathered in, protesting Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk (RWE’s) expansion of the open pit lignite mine Garzweiler II.
Lignite: Also known as brown coal. One of the dirtiest types of coal burned to generate electricity. Larger quantities are required to meet energy production levels and it contains high levels of mercury and (other pollutants).
s protestors gathered to keep the coal in the ground, they occupied the village on the edge of the mine pit for about three years. Building treehouses and community, they wanted to prevent the demolition of the town of Lutzerath. If all the coal beneath Lutzerath was used in thermal power plants, it was estimated that Germany would fail their goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This is the main goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement, a legally binding treaty on climate change that was adopted by 195 parties internationally. As a response to this threat, activists took a stand. In a huge demonstration, it is estimated that 35,000 people showed up in Lutzerath to protest on Jan. 14 2023, also known as Day X. Climate Control is an experimental film that parallels the extraction of fossil fuels, and the extraction of our attention away from important events. The story is about a group of documentarians trying to make a film about recent events in Lutzerath, but a generative artificial intelligence (AI) agent that would prefer to tell a Hallmark love story keeps taking control of the film. Professor Sarah Lasley of the Cal Poly Humboldt Film Department worked
with students to bring her script to life. Lasley’s film is a uniquely thoughtful, serious, and comedic story arc that sends a strong message.
“They’re really willing to put their bodies on the line for what they believe in.” The project, finished in the spring of 2025, is currently on a festival circuit where it has screened at six film festivals across the United States, along with Germany and Croatia.
From classroom to concept
The concept for the film started in Lasley’s social change filmmaking class at Cal Poly Humboldt. Conversations about genre led to the discussion of horror and comedy as a tool for addressing challenging topics. This inspired Lasley to think about the big differences within generational responses to climate change. She jokingly described herself as the ‘anxious, neurotic, white lady, elder millennial, statistics spouting’ type, and felt that older generations are often focused on the “boomer doom and gloom.” The younger Gen X response could be stereotyped as “disillusioned doom,” but she saw a different response from the students in her social change class. “They’re really willing to put their bodies on the line for what they believe in,” Lasley said. “They had a really embodied response to action.”
The generational differences she reflected on led to a creative spark. The story line of Climate Control showcases the embodied youth activism in Lutzerath, and the very contrasting disembodied nature of generative AI. The frames switch between professional documentary style and a technical mishmash of AI randomness. The film features an interview with a protester who went to Lutzerath on Day X, along with plenty of archival footage, live-action and staged documentary footage, animation, motion capture and miniatures making it a mixture of many techniques and genres.
Filming across continents Lasley considered hiring students over any other crew, and she already had a group in mind that had worked well together in a class. The AI Hallmark love story style scenes were to be filmed in the art quad on campus, but the documentary scenes needed to be filmed in Germany, and ended up being set in the areas near Luterzath. After following the protests in Lutzerath on the news, she was interested in how it was in many ways a signifier protest, a gesture for visibility. They knew that most likely they would be evacuated, but they stayed there anyway to give hope for resistance. Lasley received an artist in residence fellowship in the summer of 2023, in Darmstadt, Germany. At that point, she knew she wanted to cover the protesting that happened in Lutzerath. From there, elements of the film began to fall into place. German student Hannah Huber was studying abroad in Humboldt when she met Lasley. She ended up joining the film crew in Germany and starred as a main character in the film. “It was really serendipitous,” Lasley said. “We were able to take three Cal Poly Humboldt students to Germany to shoot, and Hannah connected us with
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