TREES - Sam Green x UAE National Orchestra

TREES is a live cinema performance in Abu Dhabi, staged at The Red Theater inside The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi. Instead of a conventional screening, the film is performed in front of the audience: filmmaker Sam Green, an Oscar nominee, narrates in the room while the UAE National Orchestra plays alongside the images.

The music is an original score by Caroline Shaw, a Pulitzer Prize winner. The script was co-written with Rebecca Solnit, an award-winning author and environmentalist. The subject is the relationship between people and trees, the quiet witnesses that outlast generations and take in the histories unfolding around them. The film gathers stories from different parts of the world and includes appearances by actress Judi Dench, Poet Laureate Ada Limón and leading scientists. Its aim is to slow the viewer down and offer another way of seeing our place on Earth.

The venue is the performing arts home of NYU Abu Dhabi, which sits on Saadiyat Island, the city's cultural district, close to its major museums. The island combines beaches with galleries and institutions, and the setting suits an evening built around ideas and music. Abu Dhabi is roughly an hour to an hour and a half by car from Dubai, depending on where you start, so it works as an evening trip for Dubai residents.

This is a seated evening of theatre and screen rather than a standard film night. Because the narration and the score are performed live, each show is its own occasion and cannot be repeated exactly. It should appeal to documentary fans, lovers of orchestral music and anyone curious about how film can be blended with live performance.

TREES is Sam Green's most ambitious film so far. It follows his acclaimed live documentaries 32 Sounds, made with JD Samson, and A Thousand Thoughts, made with Kronos Quartet. Both were co-commissioned and presented by The Arts Center, which makes this a return to familiar ground for the venue.