The Cave Without a Name is an intersectional ecofeminist film exploring nocturnal forms of resistance to 24/7 capitalism. In dialogue with Black feminist theory, Indigenous cosmologies, and activist histories, The Cave Without a Name takes viewers on a journey from a dystopian world of light pollution, overwork, and sleeplessness, to an appreciation of night and nocturnal life as reservoirs of resistance and healing.

Drawing from the atmospherics of punk music and art horror–genres that have embraced night as a time to confront repressed truths that haunt everyday life–this essay film braids together the DarkSky movement’s efforts to protect darkness; a night worker’s efforts to restore her circadian rhythm; the preservation of bat habitats; and more metaphorical perspectives on night and nocturnal life that range from rest activism and the idea that “rest is resistance;” to feminist Take Back the Night protests; to dream analysis; and the night as a time for creative production.

Informed by texts like Jonathan Crary’s 24/7: Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, and Tricia Hersey’s Black feminist manifesto Rest as Resistance, the film’s night creatures and dedicated dreamers open onto broader existential questions about human and nonhuman life and our inextricably intertwined fates.