Genesis 2.0 observes the harsh and dangerous life of mammoth hunters on the remote New Siberian Islands in the far north of Siberia. Here they dig in the primordial earth for the tusks of extinct mammoths. There is gold rush fever in the air because, with a 2017 Chinese ban on elephant ivory, the prices for this white gold have never been so high.
But the thawing permafrost unveils more than just precious ivory. Sometimes the hunters find an almost completely preserved mammoth carcass with fur, liquid blood and muscle tissue on which arctic foxes gnaw. Such finds are magnets for high-tech Russian and South Korean clone researchers in search of mammoth cells with the greatest possible degree of intact DNA. They want to bring the extinct woolly mammoth back to life à la Jurassic Park, and resurrect it as a species.
And that’s just the beginning. Worldwide, biologists are working on re-inventing life. The resurrection of the mammoth is a first track and manifestation of this next great technological revolution, one that may well turn the world as we know it completely on its head... and all of this has its origin in the unstoppably thawing permafrost at the extreme edge of Siberia.
Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography at Sundance 2018.
www.genesis-two-point-zero.com
Expected guests: Director Christian Frei
Program Sponsor:
Community Partners: Berlin & Beyond; Exploratorium