Dir. Werner Herzog. 1992. 50 mins. 35mm. In the wake of the first Gulf War, the deserts of Kuwait were left on fire. Who better to wander that scorched, near sci-fi landscape of torched oil fields than fearless filmmaker Werner Herzog? Shooting in 16mm with an eye ever-towards the hallucinatory and apocalyptic, Lessons of Darkness is one of his most otherworldly and covertly political documentaries. Shown with La Soufrière (Dir. Werner Herzog, 1977, 30 mins. 16mm.), a hauntingly sublime film made on an island in the Caribbean that has been evacuated because of an impending volcano explosion. Herzog finds three men who stubbornly remain.

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