Crude Tides: The End Of The Age Of Oil (Film Screening)

​CRUDE TIDES: THE END OF THE AGE OF OIL is a documentary film produced by the research project (S-OIL: The end of petroleum and the global south), funded by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The film’s co-directors are S-OIL’s Principal Investigator, Daniel Chavez, a Professor of Political Ecology at the University of the Basque Country, and the South African filmmaker Rehad Desai.

​The story moves between Ghana, Norway and Colombia, setting the industry’s language against the lived experience of those living with its consequences. In Stavanger, the chief executives of four oil majors try to strike a balance between energy and climate. In Santa Marta, at the first international conference on moving away from fossil fuels in April 2026, ministers, scientists and campaigners call for a rapid and equitable phase-out. In Accra, officials court investors. In Takoradi, fisherfolk describe shrinking catches and rising prices. At the coal piers of Cienaga, a Colombian worker explains what a just transition should look like.

​Centuries after Ghana’s Cape Coast Castle shipped gold and, later, enslaved people, a trade unionist from the region argues that the taking has never stopped. The film opens with this claim, asking who decides how the age of oil will end—and who will pay.

​The film unfolds as a deep conversation among academics, activists, independent researchers and government officials. Limiting warming to 1.5°C requires radical cuts in oil and gas, but Global South countries that depend on hydrocarbon revenues need a differentiated path and affordable capital to pursue their own energy transition.