4th Annual Saskatchewan Environmental Film Festival:
See the Change, Be the Change
March 27 - 28, 2009
at the Neatby Timlin Theatre, Arts 241, U. of S.
Schedule - Friday, March 27th
7 pm - Presentation of SEN's Environmental Activism Awards followed by feature film:
Blue Gold: World Water Wars
(2008, USA, 90 min.)
In every corner of the globe, we are polluting, diverting, pumping, and wasting our limited supply of fresh water at an expediential level as population and technology grows. The rampant overdevelopment of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the earth.
We follow numerous worldwide examples of people fighting for their basic right to water, from court cases to violent revolutions to U.N. conventions to revised constitutions to local protests at grade schools. As Maude Barlow proclaims, “This is our revolution, this is our war”. A line is crossed as water becomes a commodity. Will we survive?
View the trailer:
Following the film, there will be the Green Gala at Browsers (top floor, Memorial Union Building, U. of S.). Cheese and fruit plates will be served, and there will be a cash bar.
Schedule - Saturday March 28
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10:30 am - Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home
(Canada, 76 Minutes)
Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home is a feature documentary about how the family household has become one of the most ferocious environmental predators of our time. Concerned for the future of his new baby boy Sebastian, writer and director Andrew Nisker takes an average urban family, the McDonalds, and asks them to keep every scrap of garbage that they create for three months. He then takes them on a journey to find out where it all goes and what it's doing to the world.
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12:00 pm - The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
(53 minutes)
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half - and food by 80 percent - people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period." The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis - the massive reduction of fossil fuels - is an example of options and hope.
1:00 pm - Oil and Water Project
(55 minutes)Two kayakers embark on the longest-ever biofuels-only road trip - 35,000 kilometers from Alaska to Argentina in a retrofitted Japanese fire truck named Baby. They converted their regular diesel engine to run on any kind of natural oil and followed an endless summer journey for over a year through 16 countries. They collaborated with schools, local governments, farmers, agricultural research centers and media to conduct demonstrations advocating for the use of alternative energy all along the way. Come ride along with the boys and see how their epic journey unfolds.
Oil and Water Film
(USA, 26 Minutes)Oil and Water, Reflections on Nature, Madness and Psyche explores the relationship between humans and the natural world. Shot in Prince William Sound, Alaska, over the course of 20 years, it is an introspective chronicle of loss within the destruction of pristine wilderness. Filmmaker Corwin Fergus uses the tragedy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill to examine how wilderness is critical habitat for the human psyche and how thousands of years of cultural history have led us away from this once most obvious of truths.
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2:30 pm - Jim Settee: The Way Home
(Canada, 48 Minutes)
In the late 1950s at Waskesiu Lake, a desperate rescue team called Jim Settee after three days of unsuccessful searching for a young boy lost in the bush. Jim took few moments of silence, and then tracked that boy in two hours. Jim found many people lost in the forest, and many others have said they felt called 'home' just by being in his presence. Jim helped create a home and employment for a community of displaced Metis families, carried oral history that gave several First Nations a map of their traditional settlement area, and at 86 years old, became the oldest person to be ordained in the history of the Anglican church. Filmmaker Jeanne Corrigal's personal story of homecoming through Jim's gifts connects us to the larger home we all share, with each other, and with nature.
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3:30 pm - Over Land
(Canada, 60 Minutes)
Over Land is an intimate and personal portrait of a family facing a crisis in agriculture. Between 1996 and 2006, amidst warnings of an impending food shortage, prices for farm goods dropped to their lowest point in Canadian history, driving many farmers off the land. With a family history of farming spanning generations, the Sudermans now face a challenge that threatens to pull the family apart. As Steve Suderman films his family, the fight for economic survival becomes a touching story of hope, determination, and the search for purpose.
4:30 pm - Short Films
- Continent of the Whale (4 Minutes)
- Fridays at the Farm (19 minutes)
- Boreal Forest Expedition (14 Minutes)
- Garbage Angels (6 Minutes)
- Heron Pond (12 Minutes)
- Begging for Change (2 mins 37 secs)
This charming Japanese animation draws us into a magical underwater world where delightful marine creatures intertwine seamlessly with one another and where nature and technology converge in a playful harmony. The film is staged in "TAKORASU WORLD," an imaginary world where machine, people, and city coexist.
Feeling disconnected from their food, a photographer/filmmaker and his family decide to join a community-supported organic farm. Hoffman moves from passive observer to active participant as he photographs the natural processes of food cultivation. Featuring lush time-lapse and macro photography sequences compiled from nearly 20,000 still images, this personal essay is a meditation on the miracles of life.
Pat Bradford teaches his daughter and infant granddaughter about his life in the forests of Saskatchewan, Canada. Leading them down rivers and through trees, he explains fur-trapping techniques and what brings him to the land. Shot entirely on Super 8, this documentary roves over the Saskatchewan landscapes and delves into the family relationships that motivate the stoic trapper.
A can falls, pushed by the wind. Movement creates life. The first spark of life: A guitar, struck by the can, awakes and becomes aware of the surrounding world. A succession of chapters illustrates life growing in this dump, an environment which is created with each object finding its place within this recomposed nature. The death of the guitar seals the membership of the objects to a social group. It integrates the ceremony of funerals in the evolution of this society. At this time, objects are ready to take part in the construction of a new world.
"Wetlands are low-lying areas that support water-loving plants," states one of the many signs along the boardwalk of Heron pond. An experimental visual and aural study of the animals and plants that live in this swamp-like area and the visitors who interact with this natural site, a critical habitat for threatened and endangered species.
Original and touching, this National Film Board animated short expresses, through the art of graffiti, an urban reality too often ignored. Beautiful and simple, the director shows us how little we pay attention to the writing on the wall, to the people who call out for help, and to our environment in general.
There will be a 1.5 hour break, followed by:
Saskatchewan Filmmakers' Panel
with guest filmmakers Lindsay and Nick Bradford Ewart (Boreal Forest Expedition) Joel Entwhistle (Love to Love You Landfills) and Marcel Petit and Angela Edmunds (Pisim Project).
7:00 - 8:30 pm
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