13 Pueblos en Defensa del Agua el Aire y la Tierra.

Director: Francesco Taboada Tabone

Year: 2008

Country: México

Length: 63 min

In the future, wars will be fought over water. In Mexico this war has already begun. “13 Pueblos Defending Water, Air and Land” tells the story of the struggle of Mexican indigenous people to preserve their natural resources and their cultural identity. A documentary that contemplates Mexico’s destiny.

Addicted to Plastic

Director: Ian Connacher

Year: 2008

Country: Canadá

Length: 85 min

For better and for worse, no ecosystem or segment of human activity has escaped the shrink-wrapped grasp of plastic. ADDICTED TO PLASTIC is a global journey to investigate what we really know about the material of a thousand uses and why there's so darn much of it. On the way we discover a toxic legacy, and the men and women dedicated to cleaning it up. 

Biblioburro

Director: Carlos Rendón

Year: 2008

Country: France

Length: 52 min

Every weekend, with benevolence and the help of his donkeys, Alfa and Beto, Luis brings written culture to the most remote areas of the Departamento de Magdalena, in northern Columbia. Luis Sorlano reads to the children, without judging their origins, their parent’s political activity (e.g., agricultural workers, ELN or FARC members, paramilitary or cartels) and he loans children books for study and entertainment. Among his many activities, he also performs for them with his traveling puppet theater.

Chaparri, los Siete Osos del Cerro Encantado

Director: Nathalie Granger- Charles Dominique/ André Charles- dominique

Year:2008

Country: France

Length:165 min

In the dry forest of the north west Peru, a farming community of 500 families decided to declare itself “an ecological community”, where threatened species, such as the spectacled bear and the Andean condor were protected in a reserve, from which revenue is in priority for education and health services in the community’s hamlets. With their enthusiasm and tenacity, the “comuneros” obtained support from American and European scientists. They managed to stand up to the big mining companies who still wanted the land, and they threw themselves into ecological agriculture, organic beekeeping, replanting, water recycling and using renewable energy. Today, the comuneros, determined to leave their children a better world, multiply their meetings with other north Peruvian communities. They try to incite them to follow their example, with the idea of creating an ecological corridor, entirely managed by the local populations.

Chico Mendes, o Preço da Floresta

Director: Rodrigo Astiz

Year: 2008

Country: Brazil

Length: 44 min

Amazon, the largest tropical forest in the planet. More than 6 million km of fauna, flora and natural treasures. It has been 20 years since Chico Mendes, a latex extractor (taper) born and raised in the middle of the forest was brutally killed in his home back yard. A shot echoed through the Amazon and all over Brazil causing commotion not only in his homeland, but abroad. How a death in such an excluded place in such a big forest ran around the globe, changing the way Brazil and the international community saw the Amazon? “Chico Mendes, O Preço da FLoresta” builds in 6 acts a parallel between Chico Mendes’ life and legacy. Latex extractor, environmentalist and political figure, Chico fought, in his own way, to transform the Amazon in an area of preservation and development. Today, 20 years after his death, his friends and companions -- Marina Silva, ex-minister of environment, Jorge Viana, twice Acre’s governor, Mary Allegretti, anthropologist and professor -- exam Chico's legacy and alternative ways to economic exploit the Amazon forest. 

Darfur-vojna za vodo (Darfur- War for water)

Director: Tomo Kriznar/ Maja Weiss

Year: 2008

Country: Slovenia

Length: 89 min

This documentary tells and shows with strong argumentation, that war
in Darfur is not merely a war of people in Darfur against insignificance of
Sudan and against arabic greed for petroleum and natural resources,
but it is above all - due to climatic changes - war for water.
The richest springs of water are found in Djebel Mara in Darfur, where
the Furs live (Dar Fur means home of the Fur), who are the biggest
victims of this war, indeed.

Fury for the Sound: The women at Clayoquot

Director: Shelley Wine

Year: 2008

Country: Canadá

Length: 52 min

Women in their 70's serving months in jail with pink-haired teenagers?  A small group of activists standing alone to protest the clearcutting of the local rainforest turns into the largest civil disobedience action in Canadian history. This film is so much more than a story about trees… be prepared to re-evaluate your life.

Il Carretto delle Ribellioni

Director: Adonella Marena

Year: 2008

Country: Italy

Length: 85 min

One summer day the No Tav movement march left the Valsusa go to Rome, covering 800 km in 15 days, on foot, by bike, by train.They left the valley to make the people know their reasons against the construction of the High Speed Railway and the other so called Big Projects. Along the journey the walkers will meet persons, places, events and bands. They will collect the voices of the local communities that suffer someone else's useless, devastating and expensive choices. They will gather their pleas and bring them in a cart, called the rebellion cart, to the Parliament in Rome.  This is the story of a contagious utopia started in a cozy village among the mountains from a participatory democracy experience to meet the people of Italy who want to find a feeling of common involvement.

La Minaccia (The Threat)

Director: Silvia Luzi/ Luca Bellino

Year: 2008

Country: Italy

Length: 86 min

“Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution are the greatest threat since the time of the Soviet Union and communism”.Doctrine for Asymmetric War Against Venezuela,  U.S. Army, 2006. This is the starting point for a journey across the country which gave rise to the “red wave” in Latin America. Does Venezuela represent the dream of a new socialist society or is it just another distortion of populism and dictatorship? A trip with President Chavez over the largest oil reserve in the world, situated beneath the Orinoco river, becomes the occasion in which to enter into the lives of Venezuelans, nine years after the beginning of the Bolivarian revolution.The government missions to fight illiteracy and hunger, the creation of a public health care system and the development of an economy based on cooperative work are some of the achievements which characterize the Chavez era. On the other hand are the country’s 60 violent deaths a week and its collapsing hospitals, the closure of the most popular television channel, the old European immigrants in flight, the opposition black list and the ubiquitous government propaganda.Venezuela en route to socialism: is this still possible in our post-ideological times?

Le Tour de France de Deux Papous (The Tour the France by Two Papuans)

Director: Jean Marie Barrère/ Marc Dozier

Year: 2008

Country: France

Length: 52 min

While exploring France, the two visitors from Papua New Guinea, Polobi and Mudeya wore Western clothing most of the time and just changed into their traditional garb for special occasions. Mudeya kept the thingy in his nose all the time,  though (except while sleeping!)

Mirages d'un El Dorado

Director: Martin Frigon

Year: 2008

Country: Canadá

Length: 75 min

Mirage of El Dorado leads us far into the Andes of northern Chile, where a pitched battle takes place between a farming community and mining giants like Canada's Barrick Gold and its Pascua Lama project. The good, the bad and the powerful play for keeps in our political cowboy flick where radically different views of development collide.

MST: O Movimento Sem Terra e a Maior Marcha do Brasil

Director: Gibby Zobel

Year: 2008

Country: Brazil

Length: 69 min

For 17 days, 12,000 members of the Movimento Sem Terra, the Brazilian landless movement, rose before dawn and hit the motorway, creating a red column stretching four kilometers as they bore down on the capital Brasília in their bid for land reform. Demonised as dangerous outlaws - even terrorists - by the media in their own country, the movement of over a million and a half people has won international support and has been called the most dynamic social movement in the world.The film accompanies the long march for freedom over 238 kilometres, an epic vision of humanity on the move.

Nous Resterons sur Terre (Here to Stay)

Director: Oliver Bourgeois/ Pierre Barougier

Year: 2008

Country: France

Length: 87 min

Urban sprawl, extinct species, depletion of natural ressources and global warming are all causes of deep anxiety.  "Here to stay" illustrates the intricate relationship and contrasts of the miracles of nature and man's obsession in trying to tame it. The film is a snap shot of how humankind's state of harmony with the planet has broken down over the last few decades. Can we turn back the tide? What do we really want for ourselves ? Featuring environmentalist James Lovelock, philosopher Edgar Morin, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Mikhail Gorbachev and Wangari Maathai, the film doesn't seek to impose a view; rather it sets the stage for each of us to determine for ourselves where the planet is at; with only one certainty: we are "Here to stay".

One Water

Director: Sanjeev Chatterjee/ Ali Habashi

Year: 2008

Country: USA

Length: 67 min

Water is essential to existence.  Our bodies require it, as do our souls.  It is the stuff of life and death, of sweat and tears, of need and wonder. Water bubbles through our imaginations, splashes through our forms of play, and winds through the tributaries of human spirituality.  Yet, as precious as we know water is, we have treated it as if it were infinite and cheap, which had led to an international crisis of epic proportions.   Now comes One Water, a film that celebrates all the myriad ways water has touched human lives around the globe – and explores our changing relationship to water as it grows ever more perilously scarce.  Filmed in 15 countries in both hemispheres, the film churns together stirring visual sequences, compelling expert commentary, hypnotic local music and a score performed by the world-renowned Russian National Orchestra to immerse audiences in a direct and exhilarating experience of all that water means to humanity.  The film highlights a world where water is exquisitely abundant in some places and dangerously lacking in others, where taps flowing with fresh, clean water are contrasted with toxic, polluted waterways  that have turned the blue arteries of our planet murky.   In India, the story of women and children who walk miles everyday to fetch water of questionable quality unfolds, revealing how the need for water feeds the vicious cycles of ill health and poverty.  In  Africa and Hungary, the tale of how water washes through daily  spiritual life and moments of bliss is explored.  Along the Ganges and  the Colorado, the devastating drama of once sacred rivers suffering  from extreme overuse comes to the fore.  And from all over the world, come scenes of how water is inspiring innovation, compassion and  hope. One Water leaves audiences with a series of provocative questions that culminate in one that will impact all of our futures:  is  water a human right or a commodity? Through a starkly emotional journey, the audience is invited to bear witness and encouraged to recognize this major global crisis as his or her very own.

Do Vlastních Rukou (Personal delivery)

Director: Tereza Reichová

Year: 2008

Country: Czech Republic

Length: 59 min

This film takes place at “The Door of the Amazon River Basin” in Alto Beni region of Bolivia. Three stories explore the difficulties that being fair and just can entail. The first story focuses on the El Ceibo Cooperative that sells cocoa. In Europe we can buy these products under Fair Trade, which is about the strength of unity. The second part looks at the loss of unity. Development always has two sides. The final section deals with the components of being fair and balanced. If something is fair for me, it doesn’t mean it’s fair for everyone.

Red Gold

Director: Travis Rummel/  Ben Knight

Year: 2008

Country: USA

Length: 55 min

At the headwaters of the Kvichak and the Nushagak Rivers in Bristol Bay Alaska—the two largest remaining sockeye salmon runs on the planet—mining companies Northern Dynasty and Anglo American have proposed to extract what may prove to be the richest deposit of gold and copper in the world. Filmmakers Ben Knight and Travis Rummel spent 70 days in Bristol Bay documenting the growing unrest among native, commercial and sport fishermen who oppose the proposed Pebble Mine as well as giving mine officials a chance to argue their case. The open-pit and underground Pebble Mine could require the largest dam ever constructed to contain toxic runoff from mine waste. Red Gold is a portrait of a unique way of life that would not exist if the salmon didn't return with Bristol Bay's tide. 

Son Kumsal/ The Shore

Director: Ruya Arzu Koksal

Year: 2008

Country: Turkey

Length: 56 min

The Black Sea Shore of Turkey is doomed as trucks have begun pouring tons of rock into the sea along the five-mile-long coast irreversibly destroying the shoreline to create a new highway. A culture shaped by the sea is on the brink of extinction. The new highway will stand like a wall between a seafaring people and the wild waves of the Black Sea they have sailed for centuries.

Tesoros Descartados

Director: Ethan Steinman

Year: 2008

Country: USA/Argentina

Length: 90 min

A year in the lives of Blanca and her children, living on the fringes of society, scavenging through the remains of Buenos Aires for mere sustenance. We live alongside them in their joys and pains, exploring their reality, meeting others in the same fight for survival.

The End of Poverty?

Director: Philippe Diaz

Year: 2008

Country: USA

Length: 104 min

Poverty is not an accident. 1492 marks the birth of modern times when the conquistadors violently extracted gold and other natural resources.  Since then, our economic system has been financed by the poor by forcing them to give up their land and access to natural resources, then through unfair trade, debt repayment and unjust taxes on labor and consumption. This system was carefully built and maintained by the free market policies, resource monopolies and structural adjustment programs by the World Bank and the IMF.

The Great Squeeze: Surviving the Human Project

Director: Christophe Fauchere

Year: 2008

Country: USA

Length: 67 min

For some decades now people have been talking about saving the planet, but we are realizing that this is not really the issue. The central issue is civilization itself and whether we can save it. The stresses that we have put on the earth are not only threatening our habitat, but our way of life, our prosperity and even our existence on the planet. Our current paradigm must change. We will have to accept the new reality; the human economy is part of nature and not the other way around. We are faced with great challenges, but unlike the rest of the living world, we have the unique ability to adapt and decide our fate and the fate of most of the biosphere, for better or worse, in order to survive the human project.

© FICMA 1993 / 2009