Dir: Briar March
Year: 2010
Dur: 80 min
New Zealand

Takuu atoll, also known as ‘The Mortlocks’, is a circular group of coral islands 250 kilometres north east of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. A Polynesian community of 400 live on Nukutoa, the atoll’s only inhabited island. It is 0.5 kilometres long and 1 metre above sea level. The Takuu people have lived on the island more than 1000 years. For the first time in their memories, the sea levels are rising. They are experiencing some of the first effects of climate change. Since 2006, director, Briar March and her crew have followed Satty, Endar and Teloo - three inhabitants of the island whose way of life and unique culture are threatened by the encroaching ocean. When a devastating flood hits the small island, the community must face the prospect of relocation or destruc- tion. The New Guinean government is ill-equipped to manage the imminent crisis and it is up to the Takuu to brace themselves against rising waters that are relentlessly reclaiming their island for the sea. This superbly crafted film gives a human face to the direct impacts of climate change in the Pacific, challenging audiences everywhere to consider their own relationship to the earth and the other people on it

Awards

• Jury Grand Prix, FIFO, Tahiti 2010
• Programmers Choice Natural Facts Award, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, 2010
• Award for Best Development Message Millennium International Documentary Film Festival, Begium, 2010
• Best Editing, New Zealand Qantas Film and Television Awards, 2010
• Best Documentary, Jameson Cinefest Miskolc International Film Festival, Hungary, 2010

Ever wonder where America gets most of its oil? If you thought it was Saudi Arabia or Iraq you are wrong. America’s biggest oil supplier has quickly become Canada’s oil sands. Located in the Western Canadian region of Alberta, under pristine boreal forests, the process of oil sands extraction uses up to 4 barrels of fresh water to produce only one barrel of crude oil. The used water, laden with carcinogens, is dumped into leaky tailing ponds, some along the Athabasca River, which serves a community 250 kilometres downriver. Downstream, the people of Fort Chipewyan are already paying the price for what will be one of the largest industrial projects in history. When a local doctor raises the alarm about clusters of rare cancers, evidence mounts for industry and government cover-ups. In a time when wars are fought over oil and a crisis looms over access to clean fresh water, which resource is more precious? And what price are we willing to pay?

Filmmaker in attendance

In a remote corner of the west coast of Ireland sits the picture- perfect Broadhaven Bay, where the cliffs of Erris Head and the Stags of Broadhaven stand sentry against the mighty Atlantic, as if protecting the delicate golden sands of Glengad beach and the tiny village of Rossport, nestling behind the dunes. However, this tranquil image belies the turmoil beneath, and the unique nature of this coastline, which has sustained generations of farmers and fishermen, has made it a target for Shell Oil as the point of landfall for its new Corrib Gas Pipeline. This award-winning documentary from news cameraman-turned-film director Risteard Ó Domhnaill follows the struggle of a tragically divided community against one of the most powerful corporations in the world, over a pipe that could bring economic prosperity, or destruction of a way of life shared for generations.

Awards

• Official Selection, BFI London Film Festival 2010
• Official selection, Toronto Film Festival, 2010

On the far west coast of Finland, adjacent to the country’s Olkiluoto nuclear power plant, lies a 4 km-deep burial chamber of almost surreal dimensions and purpose: carved out of the Finnish bedrock, “Onkalo Waste Repository” – the name means “hiding place” – is being constructed as a tomb for all of that country’s nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years. Framed as a message-in- a-bottle to distant future generations, this disturbingly stylish and quietly haunting documentary explores a range of questions that nuclear energy raises about responsibility, time and memory, spiral- ling into the central dilemma Onkalo poses: whether to mark the site as dangerous. Will doing so encourage or discourage intrusion by future generations? Will the markers even be understood as warnings, and taken seriously – or will they rather create a sense of intrigue and mystery? Elegantly but persistently, the film draws the viewer into the tortured play that arises between memory and forgetting in the face of horror.

Dir: Franny Armstrong
Year: 2009
Dur: 89 min
UK

The Age of Stupid stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? The production is notable for its innovative crowd-funding financing model, as well as the Indie Screenings distribution system which allows anyone anywhere to screen the film. The full story of the production of the film is told in the 50-minute Making Of documentary which is free to watch online. After the film’s release in 2009 The Age of Stupid became one of the most talked-about films of the year. It also spawned the hugely-successful 10:10 campaign.

In an immensely moving documentary by a filmmaker known only as Patrick, Green follows the final days of a female orangutan of that name. The film is a visual ride that takes us into the beauty and bio-diversity of Green’s natural environment while also showing us the devastating destruction taking place as her forest is raided to provide products we use routinely in our homes. As these and other tropical forests are plundered for palm oil, tropical hardwoods and paper, this movie calls on viewers to think about and change their consumption habits and not to support environmentally unsustainable goods and industries. The film uses virtually no dialogue and is accessible to all on the internet as part of a global campaign to influence awareness and behavior.

Awards

• Golden Panda Award and Natural History Museum Award, Wildscreen Film Festival, Bristol, 2010
• Grand Teton Award and Best Conservation Program, Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, USA, 2009