by AEON

23 April 2026

from AEON Website

Over the past century, antibiotics have revolutionized medicine, turning once-deadly infections into brief inconveniences.

But, as bacteria evolve in response to their use, these drugs are becoming less effective, with expert projections estimating antibiotic-resistant infections could account for 39 million deaths between 2024 and 2050.

In Life Invisible, the directors Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff follow the Chilean scientist Cristina Dorador as she searches for answers to the threat of antibiotic resistance in the driest place on Earth outside the polar regions:

the Atacama Desert in Chile.

However, this search for novel microbes, and the landscape Dorador has loved since childhood, is increasingly threatened by lithium extraction.

Demand for batteries, including those used in green technologies, has accelerated mining, endangering the environment and placing increasing strain on Indigenous communities.

Perut and Osnovikoff's film builds a clever juxtaposition of scale, setting Dorador's meticulous work against the sublime grandeur of the Atacama, revealing its importance, beauty and fragility.

 

Video also HERE and HERE...