By Grace Rangata, Greenpop Communications Intern
The 3rd annual South African Eco Film Festival is back, for yet another exciting showcase of world-class environmental documentaries. The festival is known for its informative, eye-opening, thought-provoking, enticing environmental awareness films that has started conversations and relationships among organisations and individuals who share the same view and passion to get active about the state of the environment.
While the work showcased in the festival touches on a variety of topics, the theme for this year’s SA Eco Film Festival is “Future Possibility”. The festival aims to bring people together to see what they can do, share discussions about ecology topics, enjoy beautiful films with cinematography exceptional technique, inspire filmmakers and film students to watch and discover what film means to South African locals. The documentaries were filmed all over the globe in countries like the USA, Sweden, Madagascar, France, Austria, Canada, Germany, and Paraguay yet the messages connects with everyone in one way or another. Each film is preceded by a short film, the majority of these are local SA films, that reflect the themes of the main feature.
The above goals will be achieved with a programme line-up of 12 award-winning national and international films, namely:
Landfill Harmonic - a film based on a small city, Caterura in Paraguayan that started an Orchestra that became globally popular for their music produced using instruments made of garbage waste. The Orchestra is viewed as a sign of hope for the community that their landfill dilemma will be provided with a solution.
Gambling on Extinction - this film looks at illegal trade and terrorist invasion on animal poaching in Kenya and South Africa. Through an investigative approach which exposes the lethal mechanisms of global trade, the undercover connections involved, who the buyers of such practices are and the reasons for their demand. Director Jakob Kneser also provides suggestions on what can be done to stop the slaughter.
Bikes vs. Cars 21/10 - A film that questions the effect on the environment due to our desire for convenience by using cars. The film outlines how cars have created a crisis in our cities and how an option of frequent bike usage can be a solution to this crisis and we meet activists who take on a journey to fight for better city conditions by riding bikes despite being killed in traffic.
Baobabs Between Land and Sea - Addressing deforestation of the remarkable trees, Cyrille Cornu documents travel in south-west Madagascar to access the world of Vezo, a nomadic tribe of the sea and the heart of isolated forests of baobabs to explore and celebrate these exceptional giants of nature.
This Changes Everything - This film is documented over 211 days in nine countries and five continents over four years. It is inspired by Naomi Klein’s non-fiction bestseller This Changes Everything which presents portraits of communities such as Montana’s Power River Basin to Alberta Tar Sands, coast of South India and Beijing and beyond.
Wastecooking – Make Food Not Waste - A road trip documentary filmed across Europe by David Gross that detail food waste and takes a deeper look at the effects of our consumption behaviour on the environment. Director David Gross shares creative ways to make meals to fight food waste to inspire viewers to search for creative solutions for their own food waste.
How To Change The World - This film has been described as thrilling yet terrifying, chronicling the adventures of an eclectic group of young pioneers from Canada and America who set out to stop Richard Nixon’s atomic bomb tests in Amchitka, Alaska who end up creating a worldwide green movement. This film challenges the perspective of balancing the personal views and political conducts.
Revenge Of The Electric Car – An attempt to reduce environmental pollution emitted by cars, various brands such as Nissan have created Electric Cars. This film goes behind the closed doors of these brand automobile makers to discover how they the automobiles created to be oil free and generate a fast, furious and cleaner than ever automobile future.
The Anthropologist – This film captures stories of two women; Margaret Mead and Susie Crate. Eco Film Festival explains this film as two women who demonstrate a fascination with how societies are forced to negotiate the disruption of their traditional ways of life, whether through encounters with the outside world or the unprecedented change wrought by melting permafrost, receding glaciers, and rising tides.
Hope For All – A documentary that explores the Western dietary habits and what effects they have on our health, the environment and livestock through life stories and evidence-based arguments.
True Cost – Ever thought of where your clothes come from, what effects the clothing we wear have on the environment and who really pays the price for our clothing? This film answers all these questions and reveals more untold stories.
Racing Extinction – A film that exposes the world of extinction and triggers emotions that create a desire to take action to preserve the wildlife as we know it.
The documentaries tackle a variety of themes that link our daily lifestyles, wildlife and the effects it has or has had to the environment in the past and how we change some of our activities to ensure a future that secures natures possibility to reflect its riches.
As an educational environmental sustainability organisation we are thrilled and delighted about the festival and films that SA Eco Film Festival is going to share with the public this year. We hope that the intriguing creative films inspire you as much as they inspire us! In addition to our tree planting and educating mission, we believe that in our daily lives we can do a little bit more to make the environment more pleasant for us all to live in.
We took a sneak peek at a few of the featured doccies that will be showing so here’s a bit of our thoughts on what you can expect from the festival line-up.
After watching Bikes vs Cars, a documentary about how the usage of cars in our civilisation is affecting the environment, this is what Talitha (Greenpop Volunteer) had to say about the film based on her experience of living in the Netherlands;
“I really liked this documentary. It made me realize things that are so normal for me are a big challenge in most of the other countries in the world. And it's interesting to see that what the car originally was made for (to get you quickly from A to B) is now becoming a huge challenge because of all traffic jams. Population is increasing and even more people can afford a car....and just increasing the amount of roads does not seem to solve any of the problems. So bike lobby is getting stronger in many cities.
We should definitely take the bike more often!!”
Jo Jackson (Former PR & Social Media Coordinator) viewed Wastecooking, a documentary detailing a journey by David Gross through 5 European countries to seek creative ways to make meals from what others call garbage to fight food waste in our highly consumption driven society. This is Jo’s view on the documentary:
“David tackles everything from food waste in the home, to vegetable rejects on commercial farms, to by-catch from fishing rigs. He highlights just how delicious food waste can be by cooking with it whenever he gets a chance.
The clearly defined format and semi-scripted nature of each new adventure gives the documentary an episodic feel, perhaps because it was made with being suitable for TV screening in mind. The remarkable individuals and inspiring local initiatives he comes across along the way make the documentary particularly hopeful. This well paced little film underlines just how prolific small scale environmental organisations are.”
After watching Gambling on Extinction, this was Zoe’s (Greenpop Partnership and Communications Manager) observation about the film;
“Gambling on Extinction is a troubling eye-opener. Highlighting the tangled and deadly web woven between endangered species, poachers, traffickers, terrorists, and consumers, this film brings home the global nature of environmental exploitation. It is now crystal clear that for the sake of conservation, security, environmental justice, bringing an end to the illegal animal trade has never been more critical.”
I had the privilege of watching Landfill Harmonic, a documentary based on the community in Cateura Paraguay, which started an orchestra from instruments made from garbage. This film is a reflection of how powerful music can be in bringing awareness to people across the world about a serious issue that directly or indirectly affects us all. In this case the landfill in the Cateura community affected them in that they stayed in unfavourable conditions that directly affected their health and physical comfortability. Indirectly we are all affected by situations such as landfill as they are the leading cause of global warming.
The film had had basic cinematography to it but sparked emotion concerns with certain scenes. It left me asking myself questions, such as, what simple acts can I do to eliminate waste and instead recycle my daily garbage and be more mindful about the products I use daily.
This is just a scope of how extraordinary the SA Eco Film Festival is this year. We encourage that you visit their website for more information, save the date and be part of this unique film festival that highlights and celebrates our environment.
