Motivated by grief, contemporary dancer Esther begins a journey from Hong Kong to Australia, Europe and the Americas, searching for a way to live with loss in a world under ecological strain. She is drawn to an unlikely subject: earthworms—and the communities turning food waste into fertile soil through composting and vermicomposting. In Australia, she meets practitioners responding to soil depletion, landfill dependence and climate volatility, showing how circular, community-scale systems can convert waste into life. Along the way, Esther encounters community leaders, scientists, educators and ecological thinkers whose work reveals how the smallest organisms beneath our feet can restore damaged land, strengthen food systems and build local resilience.
Exploring the Drilosphere reveals how earthworms—often overlooked—are central to regeneration: rebuilding soils, reducing landfill emissions, drawing down carbon and supporting healthier ecosystems and communities. The drilosphere becomes both a real biological network and a lens for meaning-making, where science meets philosophy and where storytelling becomes a tool for action…Running through the film is a parallel act of creation: Esther’s artist collective invents Ya-Qi, a fictional performance persona, and then pulls back the curtain—showing the making of the myth and staging the “death” of that character as a ritualised passage. The gesture is transparent and intentional: an artistic strategy that asks what ceremony and collective imagination can offer when facts alone don’t move people.. Blending documentary encounters with dance and performance, the film explores an earth-centred sense of connection—and how care for soil can reshape culture, community and our relationship to the living world.
Roberto is a director and cinematographer with international television experience, collaborating with SKY, BBC, CNN, and TVB. He focuses on real-world stories, with a commitment to environmental and social-issue filmmaking. His credits span expedition and documentary shoots—from Patagonia “Revival Trophy Patagonia” to China, documenting underground rivers in Guangxi—and the short film “The Road to Yulin and Beyond,” which follows an international volunteer team rescuing more than 1,000 dogs from slaughterhouses. He shot and directed Hong Kong’s first underwater 3D VR360° short film. He was Second Unit Camera on the award-winning feature “Rather Be Ashes Than Dust.” Roberto was also the cinematographer of “The Voiceless” (completed short) and “The Gordian Knot” (feature in post-production), two projects on animal rights in Nepal. In 2020, he founded Lux Productions and directed “Hong Kong Ocean Youth,” which explores young people protecting local coral ecosystems.
