Jeanna Kolesova

In Zombie Fire

In Zombie Fire is a speculative documentary film that explores European peatlands as ecological, political, and cultural archives of ongoing violent transformation. Focusing on the Baltic countries, Finland, Germany, and Russia, it asks how histories of extraction and imperial ideologies have shaped wetlands, and how these terrains continue to bear witness to cycles of trauma and survival.

Peatlands were drained to fuel ideology, industry, and agriculture. Today, they are reframed as “climate superheroes” or “natural defense lines,” yet these new narratives often obscure their entanglement with colonial and capitalist violence, as well as ongoing environmental degradation. The metaphor of the “zombie fire”—a peat fire smoldering underground even through winter—captures this condition: suppressed histories and imperial narratives reignite in moments of ecological crisis and military aggression.

At the heart of the film is the figure of the Swamp Spirit, a speculative entity I developed to embody loss, memory, and resilience. Moving through drained bogs, archival remains, and sites of attempted restoration, the Spirit connects different times and local experiences. This entity invites viewers to reconsider peatlands not as silent resources, but as living witnesses—archives inscribed with histories of extraction, endurance, and regeneration.

 

Text: Jeanna Kolesova