Eastern Anthems tells the tale of the American Great Eastern Brood X cicadas who lay dormant underground for 17 years before re-emerging to spread across the US during the Covid-19 lockdown. The film, an exquisite corpse–style letter between two insect-loving artist friends – Matthew Wolkow and Jean-Jacques Martinod – traces the tenuous line between order and chaos, as signified by the sonic disorder left in the wake of this orchestra of cicadas – droning in harmony. This experimental documentary portrays the possibilities for using film as a conversational medium – not only between the two filmmakers, but between insects and humans, and between people's sociopolitical realities and their surrounding ecologies.

English, Spanish and French spoken, English subtitles

(Matthew Wolkow and Jean-Jacques Martinod, 75 min, 2024)