PBS announces the debut of Ambient Film, a transcendent new series that redefines environmental storytelling through a lens of meditative cinema. Created by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robby Piantanida, the project merges avant-garde filmmaking, ecological preservation, and sonic artistry to craft a sensory tapestry of vanishing natural and industrial landscapes.
In stark contrast to today’s fragmented media consumption, Ambient Film adopts a slow cinema ethos. Each episode—devoid of narration or dialogue—immerses viewers in 4K visuals of threatened ecosystems: glacial valleys succumbing to thaw, rust-belt relics whispering post-industrial elegies, and wetlands dissolving into rising seas. The series’ unhurried pacing invites audiences to engage deeply, whether as passive observers or active participants in its unfolding visual poetry.
Collaborating with experimental musicians and field recordists, Piantanida integrates live-improvised scores recorded synchronously with footage. Cellos resonate with geothermal vents; modular synthesizers mirror the pulse of migrating tides. This fusion of image and sound creates a contemplative visual lexicon, challenging viewers to perceive environments as living compositions.
More than art, Ambient Film serves as a scientific and cultural ledger. Partnering with climatologists and archivists, the series timestamp-documents locations like Alaska’s eroding permafrost and Louisiana’s vanishing bayous. “We’re preserving not just geography, but the ‘soul’ of these spaces—their light, texture, and silence—for generations who may only know them through fragments,” explains Piantanida.
Hailed as “Koyaanisqatsi for the climate crisis” by The Atlantic, the series is a co-production with multidisciplinary collective General Usage, blending artistic innovation with academic rigor.
