📍 South Tarawa, Kiribati
📅 2017 (released as My Drowning Island)
🎬 Biosphere VR

When people hear about Kiribati, they usually think of one thing: sea-level rise.

I certainly did.

Before travelling there, I expected to make a film about climate change. Instead, I discovered that we first had to earn the right to tell the story.

Former President Anote Tong, who became internationally recognised for warning the world about the vulnerability of low-lying island nations, had one request before we unpacked a single camera.

"First we go fishing."

For two days we put filmmaking aside.

Together with Anote and his crew, we headed out into the Pacific Ocean. By the end of those days we had caught ten extraordinary fish—among them a shark and several species I had never seen before. Those hours at sea changed the relationship completely. We were no longer strangers arriving to document a crisis. We had become guests.

Only then did the real filming begin.

As we travelled across South Tarawa with Anote, he pointed out places that had changed dramatically during his lifetime. Shorelines had moved. Storm surges reached further inland. Saltwater increasingly affected everyday life.

One detail stayed with me more than any scientific explanation.

Families bury their loved ones in their own gardens.

Every home carries its own family history just outside the front door. When the ocean advances, it is not only houses that are threatened. It is memory, ancestry and identity.

Another surprise was seeing small experimental plots where islanders were trying to grow potatoes despite the increasing salt content of the soil. It was a quiet act of determination. Rather than surrendering to changing conditions, people were experimenting, adapting and searching for new possibilities.

That spirit of resilience became just as important to our film as the climate story itself.

Too often climate communication focuses exclusively on loss.

Kiribati taught me that another story exists alongside it—the story of dignity, adaptation and hope.

Our cinematic VR documentary My Drowning Island became part of the Biosphere VR series and was selected for CPH before receiving invitations to international climate events, including the COP conference hosted in Fiji and presentations in Amsterdam. The film later travelled to schools throughout Denmark as part of educational programmes introducing students to the human dimensions of climate change, and it continued its journey on the international festival circuit.

Whenever I think back to Kiribati, however, I remember something much simpler than screenings or festivals.

I remember sitting in a small fishing boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean before we had filmed a single frame.

Sometimes the most important part of making a documentary is understanding that trust must be earned before a story is told.

That lesson has remained with me ever since and continues to shape every eduXperience® production we create.