23:46Coca Or Death delves into Bolivia -- a country torn apart by the demands of the western world for coca. This film investigates why bloody battles have broken out between farmers and armed troops on the streets of La Paz, and what the impact of privatisation is having through the country. Coca has become a symbol of national resistance in Bolivia...
56:41One More Dead Fish reveals how destructive industrial fishing practices have decimated the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic Ocean, once an abundant area of food. The film also tells the dramatic story of how local hook-and-line fishermen are battling huge commercial fishing practices in order to survive in a globalised fishing industry. In interviews with local fishermen, government officials, biologists, and industry CEO's, the film explores regulatory, legislative, and environmental issues. The film grounds the viewer in a clear historical context as it explains one of the world's great environmental disasters. In examining the twisted language of the multinational fishing industry, One More Dead Fish questions why we don't hear more about the true environmental costs of industrial fishing practices, partly the result of globalisation.
1:22:52Supported by a mix of archival footage, NASA shots of burning oil fields and historical film excerpts, Crude Awakening examines peak oil. From Houston to Caracas, the Lake of Maracaibo, the Orinoco delta, Central Asia's secretive republic of Azerbaijan with its ancient capital Baku and the Caspian Sea, to London and Zürich. The film questions the future of oil with leading authorities such as oil investment banker Matthew Simmons, former OPEC chairman Fadhil Chalabhi, Caltec's head of physics, Professor David Goodstein, Stanford University political scientist, Terry Lynn Karl and peak oil expert, Matthew Savinar...
25:30Founded in 1976, the United States Office of Multilateral Diplomacy--known informally as the Zap Office--was created by Henry Kissinger to try and influence the voting patterns of third world nations at the United Nations by withholding food aid to those who did not vote alongside the United States. Zap! The Weapon Is Food is an investigation of this policy, one that makes food more powerful than oil...
1:25:48Blind Spot investigates the convergence of causes behind the current crisis of global industrial civilisation. By establishing the links between fossil fuels and the falsehood of perpetual exponential economic growth, Blind Spot explains the draw down of the natural environment, and how this globalised culture is systematically killing the world in its path. The energy depletion scenario known as Peak Oil—which came to pass around 2006—requires this culture to change drastically, with dire consequences either way. By whatever measure of greed, wishful thinking, neglect or ignorance, this current way of life cannot continue and the clock is ticking fast for change.
1:27:10Bananas!* documents the legal battle of banana plantation workers in Nicaragua against the Dole Food Company over cases of sterility caused by the pesticide DBCP. The chemical, despite being banned, was knowingly sprayed on crops and workers. The result is the same old battle with corporate power as the film unpacks the issues of the case and the lives of the workers through the local lawyer Juan Dominguez. Dominguez bridges the gap between the rapacious North American company and the South American workers who were not told about or protected from the pesticide, to make a claim against one of the largest corporations in the world for justice for its workers.
1:49:01Monsanto corporation seems to be stopping at nothing: Controlling corn, wheat, soy beans, canola, mustard, okra, bringe oil, rice, cauliflower... Once they have established the norm, they aim to claim all these seeds as their intellectual property, royalties will be collected and enforced by patent law. If Monsanto controls seed, they control food and they know it. It's strategic. It can be more devastating than bombs, it can be more powerful than guns. This is their way to control the populations of the world, and as The World According to Monsanto reveals, it's governments in the cross-hairs also.
1:39:05Several lawsuits have been brought against McDonald's corporation in that they are knowingly selling food that is unhealthy. Some of the court decisions have stated that consumers would have a claim if they could prove that eating the food every day for every meal is dangerous. So with that, Super Size Me follows film-maker Morgan Spurlock conducting the experiment -- he eats only McDonald's for thirty days, three meals a day, and if asked to super size a meal, he has to say yes. By the end of the thirty days, he will have eaten every single menu item at least once. The film documents the drastic effect on Spurlock's health, while exploring the fast food industry's corporate influence, advertising and how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit...
1:19:30Artifishal is a film about people, rivers, and the fight for the future of wild fish and the environment that supports them. It explores wild salmon’s slide toward extinction, threats posed by fish hatcheries and fish farms, and this culture's relentless pursuit of engineering, mechanisation, and commodification in the face of environmental collapse. The film shows how fish hatcheries and fish farms threaten wild salmon populations, which in-turn has wide effects on the rest of the environment, but instead of helping wild salmon recover, this culture powers on with hatcheries and farms at great cost, both economically and ecologically. Artifishal explores the process, and what's at stake if this culture continues its destructive path.
1:20:24Made from the same elements as stars, plants, food and human beings, dirt is very much alive and very much just as complex. One teaspoon of dirt contains a billion organisms working in balance to sustain a series of thriving communities that have become pretty much totally invisible to our daily lives. Dirt -- The Movie tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility, from its miraculous beginning to its tragic degradation...
1:30:19On April 22, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, run by oil giant BP, sunk into the Gulf of Mexico--creating the world's biggest and most catastrophic environmental crime in history. After over 750 million litres of crude oil and millions of litres of the chemical dispersant Corexit dumped into the sea, the disaster was deemed over and all damage repaired. This is bullshit however. Film-makers Josh and Rebecca Tickell travel to the Gulf of Mexico to document first-hand the extent of environmental and community damage, continuing many years after the explosion. Beginning by tracing BP’s origins and fingerprints across decades of US manipulation in Iran, The Big Fix assembles an indictment of this monumental disaster by unpacking the workings of the complex oligarchies that put pursuit of profit over all other ends...
52:53The Coconut Revolution documents the struggle of the indigenous peoples in the Bougainville Island. The movement is described as the world's first successful eco-revolution, in that the successful uprising of the indigenous peoples of Bougainville Island against the Papua New Guinea army stopped the mining plans of the RTZ company to exploit their land for resources...
1:21:49In 2006, newspapers around the United States began to publicise a unnerving phenomenon. Honeybees were a mysteriously disappearing from beehives all around the nation. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? investigates the multiple angles of this epidemic. It also explores the historical and contemporary relationship between bees and humans, showing alternative and inspiring beekeepers from all around the globe as they keep bees in natural and holistic ways. From Gunther Hauk in the United States to Massimo Carpinteri in Italy, each has unique philosophical and spiritual insights into their bees and are striving to keep their bees safe from pesticides, and the other causes behind colony collapse.
1:14:02The film is a video essay by Professor Albert Bartlett essentially serving as an introduction to the concept of steady growth and doubling time, by taking us through the impacts and consequences of exponential growth on a finite planet. By making good observations of this impossible growth as applied to fossil-fuel consumption, population and the endless growth of which the global economy requires, this presentation gives us the basic tools to fundamentally understand that we've got a real problem on our hands.
1:22:27Going from classroom to real world, Establishing A Food Forest The Permaculture Way explains the patterns of a Food Forest and the essential principles of building a self-sufficient, sustainable way to eat. The film ends up at Tagari Farm which was abandoned years ago, but planted according to permaculture design principles. Did the Food Forest survive on its own?
1:34:32Miraculous and vital, Seed--The Untold Story follows passionate seed keepers that are tirelessly working to protect a 12,000 year-old food legacy. For only in the last century, 94% of seed varieties have disappeared, as biotech and chemical companies rapaciously took over control over the majority of the world's food seeds. Farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight literally a battle for life to defend the future of food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these heroes rekindle a lost connection to a treasured source of life, and revive a culture connected to food, and the Earth.
1:55:18What if you live in the most destructive culture ever to exist? What if that culture refuses to change? What do you do about it? Derrick Jensen, the author of Endgame responds to these imperative questions and details how industrial civilisation and the persistent and widespread violence it requires is ultimately unsustainable—and what to do about it. Jensen weaves together history, philosophy, environmentalism, economics, literature and psychology to produce a powerful argument that demands attention...
58:22Rich, land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are rushing to Mali, West Africa, to grab up land for large agribusiness investments. Malian peasants do not welcome these developments however, seeing this as yet another manifestation of imperialism. Indeed local farmers themselves are being forced off the land by their own governments to allow foreign interests in, promising large sums of money. Land titles are denied, lands are cleared and families moved on. Though as Mali experiences a military coup and developers are frightened off, the situation improves for local farmers...