AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB, or: Looking for reflections in the toxic field of plenty

AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB is a cinematic exploration that rounds up a seven-year-long research of the Salton Sea – the largest lake in California that is on the verge of ecological collapse, and the resilient community struggling to survive within this dystopian reality.
The highest asthma rates among children in the United States, chronic nosebleeds, the haunting memories of Native American tribal genocide, the echoes of military atomic bomb tests during the Manhattan Project, the massive monocultural farming culminating in cataclysmic fish and bird die-offs, and the exploitation of illegal immigrants, are just a few of the narratives that come together and define the Salton Sea.
The Historic Wendover Airfield Museum in Utah, a former military base that in 1944/45 played a pivotal role in the development of the Atomic Bomb, is the starting point of the film.
Delving into the question of who holds the right to narrate history, the film juxtaposes the narratives of those who have traditionally held power to shape history with the voices of tribal communities whose stories have been systematically erased over time, as well as other marginalized communities whose right to speak up has been taken away.
The film's overarching mission is to ignite a collective awareness of the ongoing environmental and socio-political catastrophe that has remained concealed for years. This silence, perpetuated by society's indifference to marginalized communities is contested by the enduring resonance of untold stories. From Native tribes to undocumented workers to dying body of water, their stories, and their land, are calling for our reaction. (production note)

The Salton Sea in southern California is a unique ecosystem. In just four years, the water level has fallen by a good half a meter, and with a maximum depth of ten meters you can calculate when it is expected to dry out. And that’s just the global aspect, which has to do with global warming and changes in the local climate. The Salton Sea is also special because the United States tested numerous atomic bombs here in the final phases of World War II and the Cold War – initially in preparation for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, later as training for missions that fortunately never took place. In AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB, Lukas Marxt and Vanja Smiljanić are particularly interested in this aspect of regional history. The film begins in Nevada, where the planes took off and then found their destination in the supposedly secluded area around the Salton Sea. There is a museum in Wendover where you can also see models of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy”, the only two atomic bombs ever used in war, along with a loading pit where the planes were loaded, to which Marxt dedicated a shorter film in 2019. For many years he has been dealing with the situation in southern California, which can be described as extreme in many respects. Intensive agriculture, which relies radically on monocultures, has cast a spell over everything there. Marxt and Smiljanić find out that an alliance has been formed against this backdrop: illegal harvest workers from Latin America seek refuge in Native American reservations. AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB has local experts explain the landscape and history, and the directors are looking for dissenting voices, especially among the Cahuilla tribe, who were victims of genocide in the 19th century. Their survivors now recall how many plants that had healing powers and were part of a life with nature once grew around the salty water of the Salton Sea. Now the area belongs to the salt bushes, and beneath the surface ticks the uranium of a Cold War that is about to return. Scary times, someone says. (Bert Rebhandl)