Shifting Baselines 

In the quiet border village of Boca Chica, Texas — hemmed in by the Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Grande — life once moved to the rhythm of waves and wildlife. But the landscape is shifting. Beaches have closed, homes bought out, and wetlands drained to make way for SpaceX’s colossal 50-story rockets. Hovering above the village like steel deities, these rockets mark not just the privatization of space, but the violent remapping of Earth itself, fueled by the ambitions of a tech mogul with a messianic vision for humanity’s future. Following scientists, spectators, and residents on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border, director Julien Élie captures a surreal moment in which space conquest is marketed as environmental salvation. Filmed in stark black and white and shaped by postwar sci-fi aesthetics, Shifting Baselines is a haunting observational essay on how speculative futures displace real communities, rewrite land, and recast technology as divine intervention — reminding us that cosmic ambition often begins with earthly erasure.