The weather forecast announces temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius. Jaqueline Zünd has travelled to the Gulf region and transforms the crushing heat into feverish images and a score that bears witness to the scorching winds. Yet not everyone is subject to these dystopian conditions to the same degree. While Tarik delivers food on his motorbike in long shifts, and Sophy trudges through a red-hot Dubai with a parasol, the wealthy settle down in air-conditioned rooms, some of them almost icy. In Kuwait, a palatial shopping mall is used for jogging. Meanwhile, an estate agent with a broken heart buys big blocks of ice in order to give the wild cats on the edge of the city a little relief. Zünd leaves room for the oppressive atmosphere to become palpable, for one to be overcome by a sense of existential hopelessness. “Death or emigration” is how a meteorologist describes the future vision for the region. “But no one listens.” “Heat” is a depressing preview, a nightmare scenario which sets its sights on the social dimension of the progressing climate catastrophe above all: at the start, it’s always the most vulnerable who can’t afford ignorance.

Carolin Weidner