Once framed by the camera, nature moonlights as culture. There's no wonder why a certain ecological sensitivity was common to Romanian filmmakers who were active during communism, especially in its late period. As politics became more wary of representation, nature, understood as no-culture, must've seemed a safe, "naïve" subject. And it was often nothing but naïve (Dynamic Poem, Ritual for the Thirst of the Earth), made out of the simple, everlasting passion for the natural spectacle, its imagery, scenery, and speculative narratives. Other times it was an aesthetic project, closed within itself: nature as image, and cinema as an art of nature, of time and light and body and landscape (Wanda Mihuleac's maudit films, Ioan Plesh's Pollution, etc.). Exceptionally, a film like A Day Will Come depicted not only the exploitation of nature by culture (work in a poultry farm), but also a self-destructive, alienating culture: no wonder why this version was banned until 1990. Etc. While enjoying its picture-perfect landscapes, "Natural Causes?", a retrospective of eight Romanian experimental short films, of which seven were made during communism, asks itself about the near-death experiences of utopia, cinema, and anthropocentric thought.