Nearly every day in Isla Tibaguin, Philippines, the streets turn into rivers. Environmental disasters can take many forms, and this immersive documentary follows a slow-motion climate crisis that is daily and constant. In Isla Tibaguin, the water rises everywhere and it takes hours to subside, leaving residents wading in water. Cooking, cleaning, trying to study, all in water. The film follows Riri and Angie as they navigate life with and within floodwater, emphasising the significance of community in the face of climate instability and uncertainty.

The use of the immersive medium allows audiences to face this particular climate disaster first-hand, and to feel the anxiety which ensues. Within the virtual reality headset, viewers experience a mediated feeling of being within floodwater, in a manner which two-dimensional media cannot replicate. By employing the intimacy of VR, the film makes a slow and more invisible catastrophe feel like the emergency that it actually is.

Dana Melaver