Global Extraction Film Festival – Caribbean Creativity

GEFF2022: Ascension (On-location Festival Opening)

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 20:32:40 +0000

GEFF2022 x De Pinguin x De Schuur: Ascension (Official On-Location Festival Opening)

On Wednesday October 26 at 7.15pm (CET), GEFF2022, in collaboration with De Pinguin, will, as the official on-location opening of the festival, screen Ascension in film theatre De Schuur in Haarlem, the Netherlands. Come and join us for the screening of this compelling documentary about China’s industrial supply chain by director Jessica Kingdon! With a discussion afterwards with Anika Timmerman from GroenLinks Haarlem and Teun Otte from Extinction Rebellion Haarlem, moderated by Sander van der Weert from De Pinguin Haarlem (who will also introduce the film together with GEFF co-founder Emiel Martens).

GEFF2022 x De Pinguin x De Schuur: Ascension
Date: Wednesday October 26, 2022
Time: 7.15pm (CET)
Location: De Schuur, Haarlem, the Netherlands
Title: Ascension
Director: Jessica Kingdon
Country: China and the United States
Year: 2021
Length: 97 min
Language: Mandarin
Subtitles: English
Tickets: schuur.nl/film/ascension

Synopsis Ascension
The absorbingly cinematic Ascension explores the pursuit of the “Chinese Dream.” This observational documentary presents a contemporary vision of China that prioritizes productivity and innovation above all. Ascension had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2021, where it won Best Documentary Feature and the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director. In September 2021, the film had its European premiere at the Zurich Film Festival, where it was entered in the competition for best documentary film.

GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 1 * GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 2 * AFRICA IN FOCUS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 3 * URGENT SHORTS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 4 * ANIMAL-HUMAN RELATIONS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 5 * PRESENTED BY WATERBEAR
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 6 * PRESENTED BY DW DOCUMENTARY
GEFF 2022 SPECIAL EVENTS

GEFF2022: The Great Green Wall

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 10:51:27 +0000

GEFF2022: The Great Green Wall

On Thursday October 27 at 7.45pm (CET), GEFF2022, in collaboration with Africadelic, will be showing The Great Green Wall in Bijlmerbios in Amsterdam. Come and join us for the screening of this award-winning documentary featuring Inna Modja on her epic journey along Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall project, intended to fight climate change and support communities across the Sahel region.

Africadelic2022 x GEFF2022 x Bijlmerbios: The Great Green Wall
Date: Thursday October 27, 2022
Time: 7.45pm
Venue: Bijlmerbios (Egeldonk 50, 1103 AK, Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Title: The Great Green Wall
Director: Jared P. Scott
Country: UK and Senegal
Year: 2019
Length: 90 min
Language: English, French, Bambara, Tigrigna, Hausa
Subtitles: Dutch
Extra: The Grand African Clean-Up (2021, 23′) and an introduction by Just Diggit
Tickets: https://bit.ly/the-great-green-wall-bijlmerbios

Synopsis The Great Green Wall
In this documentary, Malian musician and activist Inna Modja takes us on an epic journey along Africa’s Great Green Wall, an ambitious vision to grow an 8,000km ‘wall’ of trees stretching across the entire width of the continent to restore land and provide a future for millions of people. Traversing Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Niger and Ethiopia, Modja follows the burgeoning Great Green Wall through Africa’s Sahel region – one of the most vulnerable places on earth (temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average) – laying bare the acute consequences of severe land degradation and accelerating climate change the Wall aims to counteract: increasing desertification, drought, resource scarcity, conflict and migration.

A Buena Vista Social Club meets Years of Living Dangerously, frontline characters give voice to a continent at a crossroads – stories Modja echoes on a sublime album. With the support of insightful musical collaborators (Didier Awadi, Songhoy Blues, Waje, and Betty G), Modja endeavors to amplify the promise of the Great Green Wall in helping to address the urgency of the real-time threats facing her beleaguered homeland. Although the film does the groundwork for a climate change cautionary tale, The Great Green Wall provides a refreshing story of resilience, optimism and collection action. If completed, the Wall will be the largest living structure on earth, three times the size of the Great Barrier Reef – a new world wonder.

As Modja passionately pursues an African Dream for a generation seeking to control their own destiny, she reminds us of the enormity of the task ahead and that time is not on our side. The resulting journey of hope, hardship and perseverance reveals our shared human condition, reflecting a deeper moral and existential question we all must confront: “Will we take action before it’s too late?”

About Inna Modja
Inna Modja is a Malian actress, singer and environmental activist who appeared in, and wrote the music for, the UNCCD’s 2019 documentary The Great Green Wall. The acclaimed film followed her extraordinary journey through Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Niger and Ethiopia, and was a collaboration with Oscar-nominated producer Fernando Meirelles. With a strong following in Francophone West Africa and France, Inna is a leader among the young people committed to changing the narrative of the Sahel. Her music, energy, passion, and humanitarian works resonate with her audiences worldwide. ‘The Great Green Wall is not just about planting trees. It has to become a movement. From the whole continent… from the whole world.’

About Africadelic
Africadelic is an organization that is committed to promoting (awareness about) cultural creativity and diversity in and out of Africa and the African diaspora. The Africadelic Festival is an annual festival on and around International Africa Day on 25 May. Through concerts, films and talks, the festival offers a reflection on the state of Africa and a celebration of the cultural creativity of the continent and the diaspora. The Great Green Wall was part of Africadelic2022 in May, and now they again screen this important documentary in collaboration with GEFF2022 and Bijlmerbios.

GEFF2022: Animal Protection in the Media

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 21:19:37 +0000

GEFF2022: Animal Protection in the Media: A Panel Discussion

A discussion at the intersection of humans and animals, nature and (media) culture.

The growing attention for the protection of animals, often in relation to nature and the environment, is nowadays apparent in the media. They literally ‘frame’ the theme. But do the media really help put animals on the public agenda? And how do the panelists use the media to create awareness of animal lives, and what reactions do they get to their public appearances?

Participants: Leonie Cornips, Marjolein de Rooij, and Karen Soeters
Moderator: Maarten Reesink (Centre for Animal-Human Studies NL, University of Amsterdam)

About the speakers

Leonie Cornips works as a linguistic researcher at NL-Lab/Meertens Institute (KNAW) Amsterdam and as a Professor of Language Culture at Maastricht University. Her latest research focuses on animal language, especially how cows communicate with each other and with humans. She is regularly presented in Dutch news media as the ‘cow professor’.

Marjolein de Rooij is an animal rights activist, engineer, optimist and writer. Standing up for animal rights has been a part of her life for decades, and she regularly writes columns about this for various platforms. As the founder of the Animal Labour Union, she strives for labor rights for working animals, and she is currently working on a book about it.

Karen Soeters is the founder of animal welfare organization House of Animals. With this organization she is committed to putting an end to animal suffering, including through her own research into abuses around animals. From 2007 to 2021, she was director of the Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation, the scientific bureau of the Party for the Animals.

GEFF2022: Cultures of Extraction: A Roundtable

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 21:00:35 +0000

GEFF2022: Cultures of Extraction: A Roundtable

This roundtable brings together artists and researchers whose work engages with extraction. The invited panellists will discuss how the logic of extraction operates in various domains of human civilisation, including for example the cultural sector and global supply infrastructures. They will also address extractive logics in our collective relation to the Earth and animals, health, race, and global currency systems. We hope that the roundtable can generate a conversation with the audience and invite attendees to share their own experience of or perspective on extraction.

Speakers: Bogna Bochińska, Damian Borovsky, Olivia Brown, Erica Callegaro, Toni Pape (moderator), Gizem Şentürk (not present due to illness)

Dental Extractions (video essay, 2022, 5′) by Bogna Bochińska

This video essay focuses on drilling as a key technique of extraction in various contexts, most importantly in dental care and diamond extraction. Through this specific focus, the video essay traces how these extractive practices are connected to each other through yet another extractive cycle, namely sugar farming. Extractive agriculture has contributed to higher consumption of sugar, which can lead to the deterioration and extraction of teeth, which are then replaced or fixed by means of rare metals and diamonds. In this way, Bochinska’s video essay shows how cycles of extraction feed into each other.

Bogna Bochińska is a lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam and aspiring researcher.

“Waterlogged Docket (Extracting the Image of Logistics Ecologies)” (creative essay by Damian Borovsky)

This essay of creative non-fiction sets out to map logistical capitalism by looking at its industrial infrastructures on- and off-shore. This mapping is done in both word and photographic image. Importantly, the essay considers both port infrastructures and photography itself as part of modern techno-scientific infrastructures, integrating them in global flows of wealth, knowledge and power. The essay thus problematises its own “brackish methodology”, emphasising both the value and the imperialist drive of photographic capture. In this way, the essay also asks: To what extent does working our way out of our modern quagmire require the tools of modern technologies of capture and extraction?

“The Pearls in the Hair of Roberta Paula Williams” (short story) by Olivia Brown

This is the story of Roberta Paula Williams, a Black woman and genetic engineer who discovers a way of growing hair from oysters. Roberta builds the highly successful company PearlHair to bring affordable, high-quality hair to Black communities. But tensions soon arise when animal welfare activists and the oysters themselves challenge Roberta’s success story by pointing to the various modes of extraction involved. This piece of speculative fiction explores the conflicts of interest between the various fronts against extractivism, most importantly racism, oppressive beauty standards and animal farming.

Olivia Brown is an artist and writer, who is completing her Masters in Artistic Research around the theme of contamination

“Extracting Diversity Value: The White Cultural Institution’s Toolbox” (research essay) by Erica Callegaro

Erica Callegaro’s work explores how institutional diversity policies rely on extraction. In her research, Callegaro establishes a clear connection between whiteness, diversity and extraction by demonstrating how diversity policies operate as non-performative statements. Following scholars like Sara Ahmed, Jemma Desai and Sarah Mayorga-Gallo, Callegaro adresses the harm this does to individual “diversity practitioners” (Ahmed). In this way, Callegaro’ contribution helps integrate critical approaches to diversity policies into our thinking about extractivism.

Erica Callegaro is a student of the Research MA “Media Art and Performance Studies” at Utrecht University.

EX (zine) by Gizem Sentürk

EX is short zine that explores the personal experience of extraction. Addressing issues like labour, inflation and precarity, the zine asks to what extent the author’s perspective – and perhaps any human perspective – is both complicit with extraction and benefits from it, though often in very asymmetrical ways. The zine explores these entanglements through a combination of graphic design choices ranging from dark “swarms” of confessions to a blurred colourful script.

Gizem Şentürk is an artistic researcher working on symbiotic practices with a background in Environmental Humanities (RMA) from VU Amsterdam.”

Here you can download the reading list of the Cultures of Extraction course by Toni Pape that these students followed.

GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 1 * GLOBAL PERPECTIVES
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 2 * AFRICA IN FOCUS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 3 * URGENT SHORTS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 4 * ANIMAL-HUMAN RELATIONS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 5 * PRESENTED BY WATERBEAR
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 6 * PRESENTED BY DW DOCUMENTARY
GEFF 2022 SPECIAL EVENTS

GEFF2022 Special Events

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 13:55:50 +0000

GEFF2022 Special Events

Along with our 6 online film programs, GEFF2022 facilitates special events in the form of live screenings and panel discussions about extractive industries and their impacts on specific places and peoples. These events are (co-)hosted by GEFF’s partners.

GEFF2022 x De Pinguin x De Schuur: Ascension (On-location Festival Opening, October 26)
The Great Green Wall (October 27)
Cultures of Extraction: A Roundtable (October 27)
Animal Protection in the Media: A Panel Discussion (October 28)
GEFF2022 Watch Party by Ecological Futurisms (October 26-27)

GEFF2022 Special Event 1
GEFF2022 x De Pinguin x De Schuur: Ascension

October 26, 7.15pm (CET), De Schuur, Haarlem, the Netherlands

On Wednesday October 26 at 7.15pm (CET), GEFF2022, in collaboration with De Pinguin, will, as the official on-location opening of the festival, screen Ascension in film theatre De Schuur in Haarlem, the Netherlands. Come and join us for the screening of this compelling documentary about China’s industrial supply chain by director Jessica Kingdon! With a discussion afterwards with Anika Timmerman from GroenLinks Haarlem and Teun Otte from Extinction Rebellion Haarlem, moderated by Sander van der Weert from De Pinguin Haarlem (who will also introduce the film together with GEFF co-founder Emiel Martens).

GEFF2022 Special Event 2
Africadelic2022 x GEFF2022 x Bijlmerbios: The Great Green Wall

October 27, 7.45pm (CET), Bijlmerbios, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

On Thursday October 27 at 7.45pm (CET), GEFF2022, in collaboration with Africadelic, will be showing The Great Green Wall in Bijlmerbios in Amsterdam. Come and join us for the screening of this award-winning documentary featuring Inna Modja on her epic journey along Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall project, intended to fight climate change and support communities across the Sahel region.

Africadelic2022 x GEFF2022 x Bijlmerbios: The Great Green Wall
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2022
Time: 7.45pm (CET)
Location: Bijlmerbios (Egeldonk 50, 1103 AK Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Title: The Great Green Wall
Director: Jared P. Scott
Country: UK and Senegal
Year: 2019
Length: 90 min
Language: English, French, Bambara, Tigrigna, Hausa
Subtitles: Dutch
Extra: The Grand African Clean-Up (2021, 23′) and an introduction by Just Diggit
Tickets: bit.ly/the-great-green-wall-bijlmerbios

GEFF2022 Special Event 3
Cultures of Extraction: A Roundtable

October 27, 3-4.15pm (CET), BuzzHouse, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Speakers: Bogna Bochińska, Damian Borovsky, Olivia Brown, Erica Callegaro, Toni Pape (moderator), Gizem Şentürk

This roundtable will be held on location at BuzzHouse (University of Amsterdam), but can also be followed online via https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/82091139178.

GEFF2022 Special Event 4
Animal Protection in the Media: A Panel Discussion

October 28, 4-5.30pm (CET), BuzzHouse, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The growing attention for the protection of animals, often in relation to nature and the environment, is also apparent in the media – they literally ‘frame’ the theme. But how do people who work for animals in sectors like science and politics view these ‘frames’? Do the media really help put animals on the public agenda? Can films properly portray the relevant issues and pose the right questions in appropriate images? How do the panelists use the media to create awareness of animal lives, and what reactions do they get to their public appearances? And of course, what are their favorite films of GEFF2022’s Animal-Human Relations Program?

Participants: Leonie Cornips, Marjolein van Rooij, and Karen Soeters
Moderator: Maarten Reesink (Centre for Animal-Human Studies NL, Media Studies, University of Amsterdam)

This panel discussion will be held on location at BuzzHouse (University of Amsterdam), but can also be followed online via https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/81154529133.

GEFF2022 Special Event 5
Watch Party by Ecological Futurisms

October 26-27, 2-6pm (GMT+1), Ambika P3, London, UK

Ecological Futurisms is excited to hold a watch party of films selected from the Global Extraction Film Festival (GEFF) 2022. We invite you to join us for this pop-up screening at Ambika P3, London on Wednesday 26 & Thursday 27 Octover, both days from 2–6pm. Come along to watch a selection of films from the GEFF2022 that bring attention to the impact of extractive industries, climate change and the activist work and resistance that seeks to imagine and bring about a different future. The watch party at Ambika P3 kickstarts the research project and network Matters of Extraction led by Roshini Kempadoo, with more events to follow. With the Global Extraction Film Festival offering the unique opportunity of free live streaming of hundreds of films for a limited period, we encourage you to join us and others to watch and discuss a selection of these films together on a large screen.

GEFF2022 Program 6: Presented by DW

Mon, 05 Sep 2022 20:58:57 +0000

GEFF2022 Program 6: Presented by DW Documentary

Streaming Online | October 26-30, 2022 | #GEFF2022| #GlobalExtractionAction

GEFF2022 PROGRAM 6 * PRESENTED BY DW DOCUMENTARY
Curated by Emiel Martens

The Presented by DW Documentary Program offers 18 publicly available, feature-length documentaries made and broadcasted by DW Documentary, the documentary platform of the German multilingual TV news network, Deutsche Welle (DW). The originally produced DW documentaries often focus on global issues such as extractive industries, unsustainable development, food insecurity, human rights and climate change – issues GEFF seeks to reveal and discuss at their festival. The curated GEFF program of DW content consists of recent feature documentaries on topics such as The Deceptive Promise of Free Trade, The Climate Exodus, The Future of Travel, The Rise of Big Tech, and Living with Climate Change.

A Game of No Rules: The Deceptive Promise of Free Trade (Dir. Tilman Achtnich, 2018, 43 min, also part of the Africa in Focus Program!)

Global trade is a hot topic of the G7 summit in Canada. Is free trade truly free – and fair? What roles do US President Trump, economic powerhouse China, and the EU play in global trade? When it comes to global trade, it would seem that trickery, threats and deception are the order of the day – yet all this takes place largely beyond the reach of the public eye. Donald Trump has made ‘America First’ his agenda and rallying cry. Along with aiming sharp criticism at global export champion Germany, Trump has also introduced punitive tariffs and warned of further measures. Will this fresh wave of protectionism lead to economic isolationism and threaten global free trade? And what about those for whom free trade’s promise of prosperity increasingly rings hollow? Around the world, many people have come to regard themselves as the losers of globalization. If the true winners of free trade and globalization are not ordinary citizens, has the time come to revise the liberal orthodoxy of free trade? This documentary visits Germany, Switzerland, the United States and Cameroon to explore these issues by way of some everyday examples, including the trade in onions, floor tiles, and bicycles.

Can the Citarum Still Be Saved?: The World’s Most Polluted River (Dir. Martin Boudot, 2022, 43 min)

The Citarum River in Indonesia is the world’s most polluted river. One of the main polluters is the fashion industry: 500 textile factories throw their wastewater directly into the river. The filmmakers teamed up with international scientists to investigate the causes and consequences of this pollution. With the help of concerned citizens, the ‘Green Warriors’ team analyzed water samples, rice, children’s hair, etc. and discovered that toxic chemicals are endangering the lives of the 14 million Indonesians who use the Citarum water. What was once considered paradise is now a brown sludge of human waste and dangerous substances like nonylphenol, antimony and tributylphosphate. These findings prompted the Indonesian government to change its wastewater regulations. Recently, President Joko Widodo announced a new plan to clean up the Citarum. The fashion brands questioned in this documentary promised to better monitor their Indonesian suppliers.

Charcoal: An Environmental Disaste (Dir. DW Documentary, 2019, 43 min, also part of the Africa in Focus Program!)

Huge areas of tropical rainforest are being destroyed to make charcoal for barbecues. The global deforestation is leading to growing problems. Nigeria and the DRC Congo – two of Europe’s main charcoal suppliers – are also affected. Every year, Europeans use approximately 800,000 tons of charcoal for barbecuing. Seventy percent of the charcoal comes from outside the EU, and the bags often contain remnants of tropical woods. Officially, tropical woods are subject to strict import conditions. But when it comes to wood charcoal, these do not apply. Worldwide, 2.7 billion people cook and heat with wood or charcoal. The related emission of greenhouse gases is enormous. 55 percent of global wood is used as fuel per year, and much of it is cut illegally in Africa’s bush and tropical forests. Nigeria produces most of its charcoal for export. Especially during dry periods, local Nigerian farmers use coal production as a lifeline to make money and feed their families. At the same time, charcoal mills travel the countryside in family groups, charring all the trees they can cut down. The consequences are hair-raising. Nigeria lost 36 percent of its forests between 1990 and 2005. At present, twelve percent of the country is still covered with forest – but charcoal production continues to rise, eating up 350,000 hectares of fertile land here every year. According to the UN, charcoal production is one of the main causes of deforestation in Africa, which in turn is closely linked to massive deterioration in soil quality and a growing risk of crop failure. But African legislation has been slow to respond to the problem. The coal business is highly lucrative business, and rakes in some 7.4 billion US Dollars a year. According to recent estimates, the current illegal trade in charcoal is worth almost three times as much as the trade in illegal drugs.

Drought and Floods: The Climate Exodus (2020, 54 min)

More people around the world are fleeing from climate change than from war. If human-induced climate change continues at the current rate, the World Bank warns that by 2050 there could be as many as 180 million climate refugees. The number of climate refugees is rising – and yet the status of ‘climate refugee’ has yet to be officially recognized by national or international law. One factor is illustrative of the devastating impact of climate change on countries and communities: water. Recent years have seen an increasing number of floods and droughts. A third of the global population lives near the coast, and an estimated 700 million people are facing rising sea levels. In the Philippines more than 85 percent of the population say they are feeling the impact of climate change in the rising frequency of flooding and violent typhoons. Farmers in the highlands of Guatemala, on the other hand, are suffering extreme drought. Both water scarcity and flooding are sparking mass migration. In response, rich countries such as the US are tightening their immigration policies. Yet lifestyles within industrialized nations are a major cause of climate change. Seven countries — including the US, China, Russia, India and Germany — are responsible for over 60 percent of global CO2 emissions. The US is the country with the highest emissions, yet it also has the most climate change deniers – notably President Donald Trump. Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. He is also an advocate of fossil fuels and wants to build a wall to keep out migrants. Meanwhile, climate activist Greta Thunberg is fighting for change with her ‘Fridays for Future’ movement, and many others around the world are protesting in hopes of mitigating the impending climate catastrophe. Nonetheless, most people in affluent countries are unwilling to change their lifestyles. They are the ones who have a choice. For the countless thousands of climate refugees who are fleeing their homes, it is their very survival that is at stake. Every two seconds, a person is forced to flee their home. Today, more than 70 million people have been displaced worldwide. The DW documentary series ‘Displaced’ sheds light on the causes of this crisis and traces how wealthy industrialized countries are contributing to the exodus from the Global South.

Fast Fashion: The Shady World of Cheap Clothing (2022, 43 min)

Fast fashion has radically transformed the textile industry. These days, 56 million tons of clothing are sold every year. But cheap garments come at a high price: A precarious existence for workers and a catastrophic environmental impact. The clothing industry is currently deluging the planet with garments. With 100 billion items produced every year, that’s more than ever before. International companies are locked in an ongoing race to create new styles and win higher profits. And this gigantic expansion is set to continue: The sector is forecast to grow by 60 per cent by 2030. On the one hand, fast fashion means affordable clothes for all. Zara is known as the original fast fashion brand. The Spanish clothing giant creates 65,000 new styles every year. Shopping for clothes has become a veritable leisure activity stoked by social media: half of all Instagram posts are related to fashion and beauty. This is how market leaders in fast fashion influence their customers’ buying behavior, backed by relevant neuromarketing specialists. Fast fashion profits from e-commerce. No more trying on clothes in the store, the customer orders online and has the garment delivered – and if they don’t like it, they just send it back. Throwaway clothes and throwaway work: carried out by an army of couriers within the precarious gig economy. The textile industry is the sector with the world’s second-highest environmental price tag. Fast fashion manufacturers’ favorite material – viscose made from wood fibers – is marketed as a climate-friendly alternative. But producing this fabric uses a whole range of chemicals. This leads to serious health issues, not only for those working in the factories, but also for people living close by, for example in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Every year in Europe, four million tons of clothing ends up in the trash. Less than one per cent of this is recycled. The fashion industry likes to parade its sustainability credentials, but the reality is quite the opposite.

Floods and Drought in Nepal: The Cost of Climate Change (2022, 52 min)

This film tells three stories of people suffering from the dramatic consequences of climate change. Their Nepalese communities are already being affected by floods and drought. Their suffering is a direct result of human-made climate change. Kamala Devi Pathak lives in rural Nepal, where for 20 years she has struggled with health problems due to water shortages. Her story shows the effects of water shortages on the health and future prospects of women. The second story follows the Pipli Youth Club, a sports club in a small Nepalese town. The sports field that has been instrumental in encouraging young athletes and fostering a sense of community is now threatened by repeated flooding. The Balami family lives in a picturesque village among green hills. But the beautiful surroundings have been hit by flash floods caused by climate change, with tragic consequences. These interwoven narratives underscore the price many Nepalese people are paying as a result of the climate crisis, caused in large part by wealthy industrialized nations.

The Future of Travel: Is Sustainable Possible? (Dir. Antje Christ, 2022, 43 min)

Exotic destinations, or staycations? As we make choices like these, we ask ourselves: Will we ever be able to fly without feeling guilty again? This film examines the tourism business today, and asks how the industry envisages the future. The pandemic brought the tourist industry to a standstill. But it also highlighted something we have long suspected: Namely, too much travel is bad for the environment. Not only that, but tourism transforms entire regions – not always for the better. It profoundly impacts communities and often brings benefits for only a very few. But our wanderlust remains. So, do travelers have to decide between the two extremes: exotic destinations (and high carbon footprints) or holidays at home? Given the climate emergency, can we fly without feeling guilty? How environmentally damaging are cruises? And what does it mean to have a sustainable holiday? This documentary examines an industry that had gotten ahead of itself, even before it was hit by the pandemic. We hear from mayors, tourism managers, a climate expert, an internet activist and a sociologist. The film travels to the European tourist hotspots of Barcelona, Venice and Dubrovnik. The tiny island of Palau in the Pacific Ocean demonstrates how sustainable travel can be sensibly organized, and a Parisian start-up develops a concept for virtual travel experiences.

The Green Revolution: Biofuel Instead of Coal and Oil? (2022, 43 min)

Can our petroleum-based market economy make the switch to renewable resources? According to scientists, politicians and industrial leaders, a “biobased economy” is a sustainable alternative. What lies behind this optimism? The biobased economy promises to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems, including climate change, species extinction, pesticide residues and depleted soil. It foresees plants, fungi and insects replacing environmentally unfriendly coal and petroleum as raw materials, and microorganisms being used to produce chemicals. But even these renewable resources require a production process, and that harbors new potential dangers. These include land appropriation, the destruction of already dwindling natural ecosystems, and the exploitation of nature for profit to an ever-greater extent. This documentary examines the economic cycle as a whole, from the production of biomass to processing and finished products.

Lead in the Blood: The Fatal Consequences of South America’s Commodities Boom (2020, 42 min)

Huge quantities of raw materials are needed for mobile phones, copper pipes or wind turbines. Things that we Europeans naturally use are produced in South America under the harshest conditions. It’s a filthy business. Latin American politicians are still relying on exports of raw materials to fuel unchecked economic growth – policies that go back more than 400 years to colonial times. The price is paid by the very same people who are affected by the consequences. The Europeans who benefit from the raw materials from South America are partly to blame. Cerro de Pasco in Peru is considered one of the dirtiest cities in the world because of its proximity to Swiss company Glencore’s gigantic open-cast mine, which extracts zinc, silver and lead for the world market. Anyone living in Cerro de Pasco absorbs heavy metals via tap water. The levels it contains are well above the World Health Organization’s threshold values. La Rinconada, what was once a small village 5,000 meters up in the Andes, has been gripped by gold fever for more than ten years and its population has exploded to more than 50,000 in that time. Gold from there is usually flown to Switzerland by courier. At the same time, La Rinconada itself has degenerated into a vast garbage dump, with rubbish piled up for miles at the entry to the town. The greed for raw materials is growing and growing – and recently triggered a disaster in Brazil. At the Brumadinho iron ore mine in January 2019, a retention basin burst and buried more than 250 people in toxic sludge. Previously, Germany’s TÜV technical aid organization had classified the reservoir as safe. An earlier, similar accident didn’t result in tougher laws and the mine operators did not even pay the fines imposed on them by the courts. The new president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, also continues to focus on deregulation. Before the disaster, he even wanted to leave the safety controls to the mine operators themselves. The unregulated mining of raw materials is rapidly spreading across South America, even into what were largely undeveloped regions. Indigenous populations are putting up a fight – and often paying with their lives.

Red Gold – Mozambique’s Rubies: A Blessing or a Curse? (Dir. Adrian Kriesch, 2022, 13 min)

Rubies are increasingly prized on the international gemstone market. The world’s largest ruby mine is in northern Mozambique, where thousands of people are fleeing extremist militias. Can the lucrative business improve the lives of the people there? The mine’s executives have a clear-cut position: They say they pay the taxes they owe, and Mozambique’s government should use the money to build schools in the region, ensure security and fight poverty. They say the mine alone can’t provide a livelihood to the entire region. Meanwhile, some residents regularly attempt to enter and mine rubies themselves. In the past, there have been reports of violent confrontations with the mine’s security personnel. Are the rubies a blessing or a curse?

Oil and Ruin: The Venezuelan Exodus (2020, 53 min)

Venezuela is experiencing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Hunger is widespread and there is a severe shortage of medicines. The UN estimates that more than four million people have now fled what was once South America’s richest nation. Venezuela is in the grips of what is now the world’s second largest refugee crisis after Syria. But unlike Syria, Venezuela is not mired in civil war, and the country is sitting on the world’s largest proven oil reserves. How could such a rich nation be driven into ruin? Where has the country’s wealth gone, and why are its people starving? Corruption and mismanagement are driving displacement worldwide. The majority of the world’s refugees and migrants are fleeing from countries in the top 10 of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index – places like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan and Somalia. Venezuela was once one of the world’s wealthiest countries and a showcase of democracy. The country enjoys an abundance of natural resources, including oil, gold, diamonds and coltan. But rather than invest in its people and economy, this wealth has been squandered. Today Venezuela is mired in corruption, and deindustrialization, debt, political conflict, authoritarianism and poverty are the order of the day. The billions in profits generated by the oil business during the boom years between 2003 and 2014 have largely ended up in private pockets. And once oil prices collapsed in 2014, Venezuela was plunged into economic crisis. Nicolás Maduro, who rose to the presidency after Hugo Chávez died in 2013, has installed loyal military officers in key economic positions. Venezuela is now little more than a state-run criminal enterprise. At the same time, the country has become a pawn in a geopolitical contest over power and natural resources, with the US, Russia and China all looking to assert their own interests. Every two seconds, a person is forced to flee their home. Today, more than 70 million people have been displaced worldwide. The DW documentary series ‘Displaced’ sheds light on the causes of this crisis and traces how wealthy industrialized countries are contributing to the exodus from the Global South.

Opaque Worlds: The Rise of Big Tech (2022, 43 min)

Mega-corporations like Amazon and Facebook are becoming more powerful. And their growth shows no signs of slowing down. They are in the public eye — but are they also above the law? The pandemic has only made the “big four” — Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook — more influential. Our data has become big business. But are these corporations out of control? Experts have long watched as corporations like Apple and Amazon flout antitrust laws, while receiving special treatment: When it comes to wages, taxes and laws, these corporations seem to rewrite the rules as they go. Many critics consider Facebook and Google’s systematic data exploitation a violation of our core democratic principals. Moreover, the line between the state and mega-corporations is growing even foggier. Some states believe there is simply no way around these giants. Corporate power seems like it is here to stay. Market driven surveillance undermines our sovereignty and thus the very foundation of Western democracies. There is a storm brewing both in the U.S. and Europe. But the corporations are ready for it. Will they continue on this dangerous trajectory, or is there some chance we can still rein them in?

The Silent Summer: Why Are Insects Dying? (Christoph Würzburger, 2019, 43 min, also part of the Animal-Human Relations Program!)

Insects are dying out and scientists and environmentalists are sounding the alarm. Our film team meets entomologists, farmers, scientists, chemical companies and politicians in a bid to lay bare the causes of insect mortality. Insects aren’t really likeable. They sting, bite, transmit diseases and frighten children. But, on the other hand, they are also fascinating: 480 million years ago, insects were the first animals to learn to fly, and they took over the Earth. Even now, they are fundamental to life on Earth, and are at the beginning of the food chain on which all human beings are ultimately dependent. But insect numbers worldwide are dropping, creating a rupture of the food chain. Environmentalists and scientists are now extremely worried. Landscape ecology professor Alexandra-Maria Klein from Freiburg, for example, has been researching the effects of human interventions in natural environments for decades and has launched an experiment in a fruit plantation on Lake Constance: What happens when insects disappear? An ominous silence is settling on places that were once humming and buzzing. Why are the insects dying? Author Christoph Würzburger takes a journey into the fascinating world of insects and meets entomologists, farmers, scientists, chemical companies and politicians in a search for the causes of insect mortality.

Thailand: Holiday Paradise in Danger (Dir. Johannes Höflich and Jo Angerer, 2019, 43 min)

Plastic garbage and the death of the coral reefs show the downside of mass tourism in Thailand, which hosted 36 million visitors in 2018. The documentary looks at the effects on tourist resorts above and below water. Ten years ago there were 20 million fewer tourists. Today’s mass tourism has both social and ecological consequences. Most of the Thailand’s popular tourist resorts discharge untreated sewage into the sea, and plastic waste ends up in the water. This is killing off the fragile coral reefs along the coast. The countless hotels and restaurants mainly serve fresh fish, so fishing boats are using giant trawl nets, which are also destroying the coral. The internationally renowned marine ecologist Thon Thamrongnawasawa from the University of Bangkok says 77 percent of Thailand’s coral reefs have been severely damaged. Meanwhile, the locals in popular tourist resorts hardly benefit from the huge numbers of holidaymakers at all. They work for the minimum wage and are often pushed out by guest workers from neighboring Myanmar, who are willing to work for even less money. Small local restaurants lose out when the big tour operators take their guests on all-inclusive excursions. The filmmakers first visited Thailand a few years ago, shooting enchanting footage of the still intact underwater world in many places. Now they are back there again to look at the consequences of unrestricted tourism – both above and below the waterline.

Tomatoes and Greed: The Exodus of Ghana’s Farmers (2020, 53 min, also part of the Africa in Focus Program!)

What do tomatoes have to do with mass migration? Tomatoes are a poker chip in global trade policies. Subsidized products from the EU, China and elsewhere are sold at dumping prices, destroying markets and livelihoods in Africa in the process. Edward still harvests tomatoes. But he is no longer on his own fields in Ghana. He now works on plantations in southern Italy under precarious conditions. The tomatoes he harvests are processed, canned and shipped abroad – including to Ghana, where they compete with local products. The flood of cheap imports from China, the US and the EU has driven Ghana’s tomato industry to ruin. Desperate farmers find themselves having to seek work elsewhere, including in Europe. For many, the only route available is a dangerous journey through the desert and across the Mediterranean. Ghana is a nation at peace, a democracy with free elections and economic growth. Nonetheless, tomato farmer Benedicta is only able to make ends meet because her husband regularly sends her money from his earnings in Italy. A former tomato factory in Pwalugu, Ghana, illustrates the predicament. This factory once helped secure the livelihood of tomato farmers across the region. Today it lies empty, guarded by Vincent, a former employee who hopes to keep it from falling into ruin. In the surrounding region, the market for tomatoes has collapsed and most farmers are no longer growing what could easily be Ghana’s ‘red gold’. An agricultural advisor is trying to help local tomato farmers, but has little by way of hope to offer. Conditions like this are what drive local farmers to cut their losses and head for Europe. Once in Italy, migrants from Ghana and other African countries are forced to live in desperate conditions near the plantations. They work as day laborers for extremely low wages, helping to grow the very tomatoes that are costing people back home their work and livelihoods. These days, canned tomatoes from China, Italy and Spain are available for purchase on the market of Accra. Some may call this free trade. But economist Kwabena Otoo says free trade should open doors; not destroy people’s lives. Every two seconds, a person is forced to flee their home. Today, more than 70 million people have been displaced worldwide. The DW documentary series ‘Displaced’ sheds light on the causes of this crisis and traces how wealthy industrialized countries are contributing to the exodus from the Global South.

Troubled Waters: British Fisherman and Brexit (Sebastian Bellwinkel, 2022, 28 min)

More than two years after Brexit, British fishermen are angry. They were promised more control over fishing rights in British waters, but what they’ve gotten is reduced income. Many of them voted Leave, but now they feel they’ve been let down. The fishing industry overwhelmingly supported Brexit. Darren Kenyon is a fisherman from Grimsby in North East England. He believed in the government’s Brexit promises – including more control over fishing rights in British waters — and voted Leave. But two and a half years after Brexit, he feels betrayed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Kenyon’s income is lower than it used to be and there’s more red tape than ever. Fishermen aren’t the only ones in Humberside who regret voting Leave. It’s only now that people here realize how much the region benefited in recent decades from EU subsidies. Nearly 70% of them voted for Brexit, even though the region is part of what’s known as the Red Wall, Labour’s heartlands. These days, locals feel they’ve been let down. “I almost feel embarrassed that I voted out,” says one man who owns a fish-and-chips shop. “I wish I could turn back the clock.” The economic situation in North East England has been in decline since the 1990s. EU fishing quotas hit the region hard. In December 2019, these local frustrations were seized upon and exploited by Boris Johnson during his election campaign. Just days before Britain went to the polls, Boris Johnson visited the fish market in Grimsby and promised the industry hundreds of thousands of tonnes of extra catch, more regulatory autonomy and better access to waters. But his government has delivered on none of these promises. Fishermen, fishmongers and suppliers all feel betrayed. For now, at least, there’s still a hip-hop project in Hull that keeps young people off the streets. It used to be paid for by the EU. It’s lost that funding now, and project leader Steve Arnott knows better than to expect any help from London.

Waterworld: Living with Climate Change (2020, 43 min)

Climate change and rising sea levels mean the island nation of Kiribati in the South Pacific is at risk of disappearing into the sea. But the island’s inhabitants aren’t giving up. They are doing what they can to save their island from inundation. Can COP23 help make a difference? UN estimates indicate that Kiribati could disappear in just 30 or 40 years. That’s because the average elevation is less than two meters above sea level. And some of the knock-on effects of climate change have made the situation more difficult. Kiribati can hardly be surpassed in terms of charm and natural beauty. There are 33 atolls and one reef island – spread out over an area of 3.5 million square kilometers. All have white, sandy beaches and blue lagoons. Kiribati is the world’s largest state that consists exclusively of atolls. A local resident named Kaboua points to the empty, barren land around him and says, “There used to be a large village here with 70 families.” But these days, this land is only accessible at low tide. At high tide, it’s all under water. Kaboua says that sea levels are rising all the time, and swallowing up the land. That’s why many people here build walls made of stone and driftwood, or sand or rubbish. But these barriers won’t stand up to the increasing number of storm surges. Others are trying to protect against coastal erosion by planting mangrove shrubs or small trees. But another local resident, Vasiti Tebamare, remains optimistic. She works for KiriCAN, an environmental organization. Vasiti says: “The industrialized countries — the United States, China, and Europe — use fossil fuels for their own ends. But what about us?” Kiribati’s government has even bought land on an island in Fiji, so it can evacuate its people in an emergency. But Vasiti and most of the other residents don’t want to leave.

What Happens When Our Water Dries Up? (2022, 43 min)

Climate change is causing rising temperatures, extreme weather events and more and more drought. And, in this changing reality, everyone needs more water. Humans are competing with the natural world for water. What does this mean for biodiversity?Fewer and fewer countries still have an abundance of water. The climate crisis, overpopulation and overexploitation are the root of this global problem. And, in a warming world, everyone is using more water: people, agriculture and industry. In Germany, streams and ponds are disappearing, forests and soils are drying out. What does this mean for biodiversity? And how do people cope with drought in countries that have even less water — for example, in the USA or Mexico? What happens when our water dries up? This is a three-part documentary series.

GEFF2022 Program 5: Presented by WaterBear

Mon, 05 Sep 2022 20:54:55 +0000

GEFF2022 Program 5: Presented by WaterBear

Streaming Online | October 26-30, 2022 | #GEFF2022| #GlobalExtractionAction

GEFF2022 PROGRAM 5 * PRESENTED BY WATERBEAR
Curated by Emiel Martens

The Presented by WaterBear Program offers 17 short docs, including the series The Breakdown and Europe’s Biggest Lie, and 3 feature documentaries, Youth Unstoppable, Milked and Slay, that are exclusively available on WaterBear, ‘the first interactive video on demand platform dedicated to the future of our planet.’ WaterBear features award-winning documentaries, a global network of over 100 charity partners and empowers members to take direct action to go beyond watching the content, dive deeper, learn more and take action while watching. The selected films for GEFF2022, almost all Waterbear Originals, are about people fighting for environmental and food justice, to protect last wild places and species, and to find community-based solutions.

You’ll need to create a (free) account at WaterBear to be able to watch the films. In fact, you can watch all WaterBear films anytime, anywhere on iOS & Android, your laptop or tablet. Download the app for free in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Also available on Roku, Apple TV & Samsung TV.

GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 1 * GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 2 * AFRICA IN FOCUS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 3 * URGENT SHORTS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 4 * ANIMAL-HUMAN RELATIONS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 6 * PRESENTED BY DW DOCUMENTARY
GEFF 2022 SPECIAL EVENTS

The Ball’s In Our Court (2021, 4 min)
Rainforests are one of the most complex ecosystems in the world. The indigenous communities that have been living in harmony with nature for thousands of years are now threatened.

The Breakdown (2021)
This 5-part series breaks down all aspects of the climate and the ecological crisis. It explores how we got here, where we are headed, and what humanity can do to make a difference. Presented by Jack Harries, it highlights the key themes at the forefront of young people’s minds today, in a clear and relatable way.

The Breakdown Ep.1: Climate Change: How We Got Here (2021, 7 min)
Looking back at our 10,000 years of climate stability , this episode covers how the discovery of ancient fossil fuels changed the course of humanity as we know it.

The Breakdown Ep.2: Climate Denial: 50 Years of Lies & Misinformation (2021, 10 min)
This episode explores the role of fossil fuels companies in denying the science around climate change and investing millions into misinformation campaigns to confuse the public and seed doubt.

The Breakdown Ep.3: Climate Crisis: Nine Years Left to Avoid Disaster (2021, 9 min)
Addressing why we have just 9 years left to halve global emissions, and taking a look back at all the COPs of the past. We look at the crucial turning points of the Paris climate agreement, the 2018 IPCC report and why COP 26 in Glasgow is so crucial.

The Breakdown Ep.4: Climate Justice: An Unequal World (2021, 9 min)
Highlighting how climate change is first and foremost a social justice issue, and looking at the intersection between racism and climate change and exploring the need for a just transition.

The Breakdown Ep.5: Climate Solutions: What You Can Do (2021, 8 min)
In this episode, we look at the difference between individual and systemic change and ultimately why we must all join the climate movement.

Europe’s Biggest Lie (2022)
The Europe’s Biggest Lie short film series goes beyond the headlines to uncover the human stories behind Europe’s biggest environmental threat. Told using a range of contributors in the UK and the Netherlands, we reveal the scale and life threatening impact of the pollution that we breathe in everyday, as well as the inaction of our governments.

Europe’s Biggest Lie: UK (2022, 15 min)
Told using a range of contributors in the United Kingdom, Europe’s Biggest Lie: UK reveals the scale and life threatening impact of the pollution that we breathe in everyday, as well as the inaction of our governments.

Europe’s Biggest Lie: NL (2022, 22 min)
Told using a range of contributors in the Netherlands, Europe’s Biggest Lie: NL reveals the scale and life threatening impact of the pollution that we breathe in everyday, as well as the inaction of our governments.

Europe’s Secret Eden: Polesia (2020, 5 min)
Olya Kaskevich is dedicated to saving Polesia, Europe’s largest wetland wilderness. She paddles along with 49 other activists through meanders of Pripyat river in their canoes to raise awareness of this gem.

The Fight Against Plastic (2021, 6 min)
With a hugely energy intensive and polluting manufacturing process and environmentally catastrophic products, feted NGO, ClientEarth, has joined forces with grass campaigners to oppose the plans of a €3BN plastics superplant in the Port of Antwerp. They’re winning, but can the momentum be sustained?

Food For Thought (2021, 4 min)
More than ⅓ of the world’s food is wasted, where does this waste go? What impact does it have? And what can be done to prevent it? Featuring Simmie Vedi – freelance Chef based in Cardiff, and Douglas McMaster – founder of the world’s first zero-waste food restaurant, this short film explores the creative ways that humans and the food industry itself are re-imagining food waste.

Greenwash, Explained with Hamsters (2022, 5 min)
What is the difference between green action and green ’action’? We’ve recruited a team of climate-conscious hamsters to help explain the ins and outs of greenwashing, how to spot it and call it out.

Intersections (2022, 14 min)
Intersections is a film that digs into the term ‘Intersectional Environmentalism’ – an inclusive version of environmentalism that advocates for both the protection of people and the planet. Through a discussion between Leah Thomas – a young activist, and Betty Reid Soskin – the US’s oldest Park Ranger, the two women discuss topics that range from race, gender, history, and nature.

A Meatless Future (2020, 5 min)
This punchy short film is about tackling our relationship with meat consumption. Humans have a 1.5 million year history with meat, but a rapidly growing population means we need alternatives and fast.

Milked: White Lies In Dairy Land (Dir. Amy Taylor, 2022, 90 min, also part of the Global Perspectives Program!)
The documentary Milked follows a young activist who goes deep into dairy land where he takes on the giants of New Zealand’s most powerful industry, and reveals how the sacred cash-cow industry has been milked dry. His journey exposes not only the sustainability crisis and the dangerous denial of impending agricultural disruption, but also what New Zealand and other countries can do to change their fate.

People vs Pipeline: The Cost of Crude Oil (29 min)
In early 2021, Canadian and US land defenders and organizations successfully stopped the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. From a small group of people to forming unlikely alliances and gaining global attention, the power of the people prevailed. Many of the various threats were underpinned by water security. The increasing vulnerability of watersheds to the risk of spills brought indigenous, non-indigenous and climate organization groups to fight together for a common purpose of protecting their lands from devastating environmental destruction, creating a turning point in environmental activism history. After the victory of stopping the pipeline in early 2021, the big question remains: What is to stop the project from resurrecting under a more ‘preferable’ government? How can marginalized communities ensure their opinions and legal rights aren’t disregarded with similar projects?This documentary film project will celebrate the people and efforts behind stopping Keystone XL and will serve as a reference for similar case studies to stop oil pipelines and Tar Sand developments in the near future.

Slay (2022, 86 min, also part of the Animal-Human Relations Program!)
From the makers of award-winning films Cowspiracy and What The Health, Slay follows filmmaker Rebecca Cappelli’s journey around the world to uncover the dark side of the fashion industry. Rebecca’s investigation into the animal skins trade unravels a harrowing story of greenwashing, mislabeling, animal cruelty and cover-ups from some of the world’s major luxury fashion brands. Slay provides an in-depth and eye-opening look into the realities of today’s fashion industry while pointing the way towards viable and sustainable alternatives. Are you ready to get under fashion’s skin?

Sumatra’s Forest Guardian (2020, 5 min)
A David and Goliath tale following fearless Indonesian eco-activist Farwiza Farhan and her battle to protect Sumatra’s last pristine rainforest against corporations seeking to destroy it for profit.

Turning the Tide on Plastic (2020, 3 min)
Ramon Knoester, the founder of Clear Rivers, noticed that 80% of plastics worldwide enters the oceans through rivers. Inspired by the need for innovation in floating architecture, Clear Rivers tested out the best ways to catch, sort and repurpose the plastics.

Youth Unstoppable (2021, 89 min)
Being the first Waterbear Original feature-length film, Youth Unstoppable takes us inside the rise of the Global Youth Climate Movement. Slater Jewell-Kemker was 15 when she began documenting the untold stories of youth on the front lines of climate change refusing to let their futures slip away. Over the course of 12 years and set against stunning visuals of a planet in crisis, Youth Unstoppable follows the evolution of a diverse network of youth rising up to shape the world they will live in.

GEFF2022 Program 4: Animal-Human Relations

Sun, 04 Sep 2022 14:59:07 +0000

GEFF2022 Program 4: Animal-Human Relations

Streaming Online | October 26-30, 2022 | #GEFF2022 | #GlobalExtractionAction

GEFF2022 PROGRAM 4 * ANIMAL-HUMAN RELATIONS
Curated by Maarten Reesink, Emiel Martens and Esther Figueroa

The Animal-Human Studies Program, curated by the Centre for Animal-Human Studies Netherlands (in collaboration with GEFF), comprises over 25 feature-length documentaries and urgent shorts about the relationship between humans and animals, and the impact of the extractive industries on animals.

Humans are animals who dominate the planet and often decide which other animals have value, are our food, our friends, our enemies, are pests, can be sacrificed or made extinct. Relations between humans and other animals are the focus of (Human) Animal Studies, and also of this Animal-Human Relations Program. And just as the exploitation of the planet often benefits big business and rich countries at the expense of marginalized groups of people, so it often comes at the expense of non-human animals to an even greater extent.

In the context of global extraction by humans in relation to animals, we cannot ignore the unequal (power) relations between the two and the resulting exploitation of non-human animals. In line with this, it is interesting to see how humans and animals move about the earth: what space do people share with other animals, who has the freedom to inhabit or move through the land, and who is forced into continuous and global migration, dead or alive. These kinds of questions are the domain of ‘human-animal geography’.

GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 1 * GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 2 * AFRICA IN FOCUS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 3 * URGENT SHORTS
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 5 * PRESENTED BY WATERBEAR
GEFF 2022 PROGRAM 6 * PRESENTED BY DW DOCUMENTARY
GEFF 2022 SPECIAL EVENTS

LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY

If we look at the Animal-Human Relations program with this human-animal geography view, we only see a few films in which human beings are virtually absent (at least physically) as we are used to in traditional nature documentaries. In Our Planet: Jungles and Our Planet: High Seas, nature still seems relatively untouched and the animals still live undisturbed.

Appearances can be deceiving, though, because now even the small animals that we used to see literally everywhere are starting to disappear – and that’s a silent disaster, as is clearly explained in The Silent Summer: Why Are Insects Dying?. Due to the current rapid loss of biodiversity in general, we may soon be able to admire millions of species only in natural history museums, as shown in The Second Life.

Precisely the last ‘corona years’ have shown (in Nature’s Big Year) how great the positive influence on nature can be if people actually stay away from the wilderness for some time or at least radically reduce their ecological ‘footprint’, so that the other animals are given the opportunity to ‘appropriate’ those natural spaces again.

WILDLIFE TRADE

In addition to the loss of wildlife species as a result of habitat loss, including through human expansion and pollution, this loss is also caused by the (illegal) trade in wild animals, dead or alive – which is after the trade in people, weapons and drugs, the fourth largest sector worldwide.

What that means in practice becomes very concretely visible in Inside the Dead Shed . Parts of wild animals have been incorporated, often at the expense of much animal suffering, in exclusive fashion (see Slay) or other luxury items (see Luxury: Behind the Mirror) from well-known brands.

In addition, many people in the West are no longer satisfied with a dog or cat as pets, but are looking for something more exotic, such as fish (see The Impact of Keeping Exotic Fish) or reptiles (in The Reality Behind Keeping Reptiles as Pets). And even fellow primates are “lovingly” taken from their wild environment by humans and locked in their homes, as seen in Should Primates be Kept as Pets?

LIVESTOCK FARMING

While there are fewer and fewer species and individuals of wild animals roaming the earth in freedom, there are far too many of the animals that have been domesticated and kept by humans. Moreover, they are forced to live in huge numbers on too small areas, and often in miserable conditions, before they are finally put out of their suffering.

This applies not only to cows in New Zealand (see in Milked), but also to horses in Argentina (see in Cinco Corazones), which are slaughtered after a miserable life and then transported en masse to European consumers. And anyone who still doubts that intensive livestock farming also makes people worldwide sick should definitely check out Dirty Secrets of the Meat Industry: Cancer-Causing Processed Meat?.

But the relationship between individual people and cows can also be very different: see the moving story of When the Swallows Fly Away. And in line with this is the message of Peaceable Kingdom, in which people from different perspectives look for a new, different relationship to farm animals in practice.

FISHING INDUSTRIES

Although we know now that fish also feel pain, display complex behavior and have diverse emotions, an affective relationship between humans and these animals is still a long way off in fisheries. In fact, because the oceans seem endless to us, the same must apply to the numbers of fish that swim in them.

However, that is increasingly becoming an illusion, as is clear from The End of the Line. And that means that even fishermen are now starting to worry, although in Troubled Waters: British Fisherman and Brexit it is still mainly about economic interests.

But in The Reality Behind Oyster Farmers, we see how the cultural significance of this shellfish makes fishermen think about what their worrisome condition means for the future not only of themselves, but also of the fishes, the water and the planet.

HUMAN-ANIMAL CONFLICTS

Although humans hunt animals all over the planet for food and other forms of exploitation, even over the seas and oceans, they still contest the habitat of the animals less in water than on land. There, a growing human world population is increasingly coming into conflict with other animals, especially where people and animals (have to) share their habitat.

Most problematic in general is the relationship with other predators considered to be food competitors if not outright pests (as in How African Wild Dogs Keep the Ecosystem in Check), especially if they view us as potential prey (as in Namibia’s Chobe River: The Deadly Crocodile Capital).

But the biggest problems are often formed by Westerners, who travel to ‘exotic places’ far away from home to ‘bravely’ face ”the king of beasts” – often in ecologically and ethically highly reprehensible ways, that almost always at the expense of the local ( human) population and certainly of the animals, as we see in How Men Get Along With the King of Animals and Blood Lions.

Even great apes cannot escape the ill effects of the rampant tourism industry, which brings people from all over the world to the last bits of habitat of our closest wild relatives, as can be seen in Eyes of the Orangutan.

TO A MULTI-SPECIES PLANET

Fortunately, there are also people who put their heart and soul into preserving the wild nature and non-human life there. Three films in the Animal-Human Relations program show particularly positive examples of this: in Turtles on the Hill we see a dedicated community conservation group in a suburban Rhode Island wildlife refuge, in Protecting the Forests of Mt. Kenya we follow the wildlife rangers in their conservation and education work on the spot, and in Akashinga: The Brave Ones we join an all-female anti-poaching team in Zimbabwe.

All these people combine a well-developed ecological awareness with a high degree of involvement with the fellow creatures for whom they stand up. Nowhere can we see that empathy better than in The Bonobo Connection, about the bond with one of our closest animal species.

This corresponds with the optimistic message in The Human Element, the destructive forces with which mankind has brought all life into the current Anthropocene can also be turned for the better. So that humans and other animals don’t live in geographically (and mentally) separate worlds, but truly share a ‘multi-species planet’.

CONCLUSION

GEFF2022 brings all the abovementioned films together in this year’s Animal-Human Relations Program. Most films are publicly available, but we have 6 films that are festival exclusives, meaning that these films are only (freely) available during the festival (October 26-30). Below, the festival exclusives are listed first, followed by the other selected films in alphabetical order.

ANIMAL-HUMAN RELATIONS PROGRAM * FESTIVAL EXCLUSIVES

Cinco Corazones (Five Hearts, Dir. Martin Parlato, 2020, 35 min, festival exclusive!)
Argentina currently exports 60% of all horse meat consumed globally. However, the consumption of horse meat is prohibited in Argentina itself and no horses are bred for this purpose in the country. So, with 200,000 horses being slaughtered each year for export to the European Union, where exactly is this meat coming from? Cinco Corazones reveals the grim reality behind the lives of Argentinian horses. These animals suffer many forms of abuse from the moment they are born, only to end their lives being slaughtered for export to the main consuming countries in Europe. The film exposes cultural and sporting practices, political collusion and shady business dealings, which severely harm the health of these animals and constitute animal welfare violations. From the well-known director and producer Martin Parlato and narrated by renowned actress and animal rights defender Liz Solari; the film seeks to draw attention to the stark reality of horse meat export from Argentina to Europe and to help put an end to the cruel practices involved.

Eyes of the Orangutan (Dir. Chris Scarffe and Will Foster-Grundy, 2021, 50 min, festival exclusive!)
From the studio that brought you Ivory Game and Sea of Shadows comes a new and powerful documentary: Eyes of the Orangutan. A captivating exploration of one of the most troubling facets of modern wildlife tourism, and an uplifting celebration of one of our closest living relatives: the orangutan. Wildlife tourism has become a lucrative business and is now worth around 250 billion dollars a year. These profits come at a cost – and it is the animals who pay the ultimate price.