Return Of The Fireflies WCFF 2025
Festival Winners
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1m 21s
Amid the motorbikes, neon cafés, and restless energy of Bali, a quiet revolution glows in the shadows. For three years, Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde and local Balinese collaborators have worked to bring back a species that had almost disappeared: the firefly. In Indonesia, these small beacons are more than creatures; they are threads of cultural memory, woven into stories, songs, and nights beneath the stars.
This short film is an intimate, luminous love story between people and nature. Each flicker in the dark is a signal, a call to a mate, a whisper of longing, a brief reunion in the night. Yet their fading glow carries a warning: we may be the last generation to witness this living light.
Shot under red light invisible to fireflies, the film enters their world without disturbance, offering a rare, unguarded view of their silent courtship. More than a document, it is a poetic call to action, imagining a kind of eco-tourism where human presence restores rather than erodes, and where the balance between people and the natural world can be rebuilt, spark by spark.
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