Visual Mechanism of Ecological Intelligibility: Religion, Environment, and Cinematic Knowledge in Semesta

This article examines Semesta (2020), a documentary directed by Chairun Nissa that explores the relationship between seven ecological initiatives and religious commitments in Indonesia. The study is significant because the film’s structure integrates diverse eco-theologies into a coherent sensory narrative. Through cross-modal coding-based visual analysis, the study reveals mechanisms of associative identity, doctrinal condensation, and montage rhythm that generate ecological intelligibility—a condition in which religion is understood as ecological ethics through sensory perception. These findings contribute to anthropological cinema by demonstrating how visual-verbal configurations transform normative knowledge into embodied experience.