Reel Earth Festival 2009 Waiheke Island

Sunday 13 - Friday 18 September 2009
To celebrate Conservation Week 2009 the Hauraki branch of the Forest & Bird Protection Society present a selection from the Reel Earth Aotearoa Environmental Film Festival. This successful festival has been running in Palmerston North for the last 5 years, bringing together recent movies and documentaries from all over the world.

These movies are very topical, highly professional productions, that will not appear on public TV, as they tend to delve a bit deeper and don’t shy away from controversy. A great opportunity to gain some new insights in environmental issues here in New Zealand and around the globe. And its not all doom and gloom; some of these films are simply hilarious, others are full of hope for the future.

For more information, see the local papers for session times, call Waiheke Cinema (372 4240 or Jan Ramp (372 8992). Fliers are available at the cinema, the library and several shops around Waiheke.

• Artworks, Oneroa, Waiheke Island
• All sessions (except the Friday night session) start at 5pm sharp and have a 5 minute intermission.
• Admission by koha ($10 pp would be great thanks) Proceeds will go to the Hauraki Branch of Forest & Bird.
  
  
  • Sun 13 Sep 5pm Pick of the Festival I Carbon Weevils - United Kingdom (2007) 8 minutes Swing - New Zealand (2007) 7 minutes Theft - New Zealand (2008) 6 minutes So Right-So Smart - USA (2008) 99 minutes
    
    
  • Mon 14 Sep 5pm International Stories Voyage of the Vezo - Madagascar (2008) 24 minutes A Grain of Sand - Spain (2008) 83 minutes
    
    
  • Tue 15 Sep 5pm From around the globe Herbal Pathways - New Zealand/Vietnam (2009) 21 minutes Harvesting the Wind- USA (2007) 26 minutes - Grandma Builds an Earthship - USA (2008) 58 minutes
    
    
  • Wed 16 Sept 5pm Climate Change Lessons from a Melting Icecap - New Zealand (2008) 28 minutes Tara- Journey to the Heart of the Climate Machine - France (2008) 90 minutes
    
    
  • Thur 17 Sep 5pm The Ocean Duck Journey - Canada (2007) 2 minutes The Plastic Perils of the Pacific - USA (2007) 4 minutes Wild Ocean - USA (2008) 40 minutes The Deadline - United Kingdom (2008) 51 minutes
    
    
  • Fri 12 Sep NIGHT SESSION 8pm Pick of the Festival II Carbon Weevils - United Kingdom (2007) 8 minutes Whetu Rere - the Sea Lion and the Comet - New Zealand (2007) 24 minutes Karearea - The Pine Falcon - New Zealand (2008) 49 minutes Wye: Voices from the Valley - United Kingdom (2007) 49 minutes.
    
    
    
    Full description of the movies

Carbon Weevils
United Kingdom 2007 (8 mins) Director: Tim Britton
A view at breakneck speed of the evolution of one particular species- the Carbon Weevil,- whose purpose and role is to excavate the earth's carbon deposits and convert them into carbon dioxide.


Swing
New Zealand 2007 (7 mins) Director: Dawn Tuffery
Nominated for Best Animation and Best New Zealand Film
Winner: Ora3 Award for Emerging Filmmakers
As a small creature swings through the trees, alien property developers go to work. Everyone finds out about the soil stabilising properties of trees the hard way, in this captivating claymation.

Theft
New Zealand 2008 (6 min) Director: Iain Frengley
Nominated for Best New Zealand Film
The thin line between right and wrong is being tested in the dark alleys of Dunedin. This film shows the different sides of the waste debate. What is the biggest crime?

So Right - So Smart
USA 2008 (99 mins) CO Directors: Justin Maine,Leanne Robinson-Maine,Guy Noerr & Michael Swantek
Nominated for Best Feature Film
Winner: Destination Manawatu Award for Best Feature Film
“I was a plunderer of Earth; stealing my grandchildren’s future. And that is not the legacy one wants to leave behind.” One of the slickest, most professional films submitted to this year’s festival, So Right So Smart tells the story of how, in an epiphanal moment, Ray Anderson, founder of the hugely successful Interface Corporation, realised the implications of his company’s way of operating. Describing it as “like a spear in the chest,” Anderson accepted the ethical imperative to ensure Interface no longer imperilled but in fact contributed to a sustainable future. The decision, he believed, was “So right.” As his vision turned into action, he realised sustainability was also “So smart”—it helped, not hindered, his business goals. So Right So Smart also shows how ecologically sound business practices foster better business in general, using examples such as clothing company Patagonia, the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, rock stars the Bare Naked Ladies and others. Insights from luminaries like Paul Hawken, David Suzuki, Lester Brown, and many others entertain and inform, and the narration by Daryl Hannah links the various aspects of the film to help create a truly inspirational film that should be required viewing for all our politicians and captains of industry. Highly recommended.

Voyage of the Vezo
Madagascar 2008 (24 mins) Director: Giovanni Paolo Autran
Nominated for Best Short Film
Winner: Environmental Choice Award for Best Short Film
An outstanding short film that will have you mesmerised by the beauty and colour of the exotic scenery and emotionally engaged with the plight of the Vezo - the coastal society of southwest Madagascar. Their livelihood has always relied on the reef, but as fewer and smaller fish are being caught Maro Bezozo wonders if the Vezo’s relationship with the ocean has fallen out of balance. Maro and his nephew Sambalahay embark on a 100 km voyage, sailing north to seek understanding and solutions. This is their story.

A Grain of Sand
Spain 2008 (83 mins) Director: Joseph Johnson Cami
Nominated for International Features Award
“The work of a few can be the inspiration of many” The story of Brendon Grimshaw’s fight to save the piece of paradise on which he lives—Moyenne Island, in the Seychelles—might seem of marginal relevance to Aotearoa, but many aspects have echoes here, particularly given our government’s intention to relax the laws governing foreign investment. Moreover, on a global scale, A Grain of Sand provides much to mull over; not least, the pressure exerted by the World Bank to ‘liberalise’ economies in return for aid. As Grimshaw reflects, “They get away with a lot of bad things by using the word ‘development’”. Because of its elevation, rising sea levels threaten Moyenne Island less than many other small Seychelles islands, and its monetary value has skyrocketed, leaving Grimshaw and his allies struggling to protect the island from rapacious developers after he dies. Competent filming and excellent editing complement a strong story, placing this high on the list of films to see.

Herbal Pathways
New Zealand / Vietnam 2009 (21 mins) Director: Anna Hickman
Nominated for Best Short Film and Best New Zealand Film
Runner Up: Environmental Choice Award for Best Short Film
Filmed in the stunning mountainous Sa Pa region of Northern Vietnam, ‘Herbal Pathways’ shares a quietly intimate and informative account of the Medicinal Plants Innovation Project (MPIP). MPIP brought NZAID and the hill tribe people together on a quest to fulfil two objectives—poverty alleviation and plant conservation. Intellectually engaging, Pathways combines stunning cinematography with the hugely positive story of the conservation of important medicinal plants and of the communities that rely on these plants.

Harvesting the Wind
USA 2007 (26 mins) Veronique Bernard
In an age of peak oil, climate change, and increasing energy demands, could wind energy play a key role in providing not only green energy, but also a source of income for local farmers? Regarding these big issues, Minnesota and New Zealand have much in common. Made for television and set in rural Minnesota, this film investigates the burgeoning popularity of community owned wind energy in the absence of strong renewable energy policy. A provocative film that presents a community driven response to an often passion-filled issue.

Grandma Builds An Earthship
USA 2008 (58 mins) Director: Kent Gunnufson
Who says age and inexperience are barriers to accomplishment? She might be 67 years old with a cardiac problem, but Pascha dug the trenches, placed the timbers, wired the outlets, milled the cabinets, trowelled the walls, and did most of the other work to build her home in the mountains at 3000 metres. And, as if the Colorado Rockies weren’t hard enough, she overcame a mountain of regulatory barriers to build her home using alternative construction methods and energy sources (it’s completely off the grid). But the challenges of building her dream home also built her inner spirit, and the film inspires not just by showing possibilities for alternative building but by showing the power of imagination, determination, and humour.

Lessons from a Melting Icecap
New Zealand 2008 (28 mins) Director: Jinty MacTavish
Winner: Spinning Planet Award for Best New Zealand Film
In mid 2007, three Dunedin school girls won a nationwide contest and found themselves journeying first to London then to Greenland to encounter a 1.8 million square kilometre icecap. Told through the travel log of the naïve yet enthusiastic girls and using an adept mix of graphics and actual footage, Lessons takes the huge, often intangible issues of climate change, sustainability and our reliance on oil, and gives them a human face—a young, hopeful, very Kiwi one.

Tara -Journey to the Heart of the Climate Machine
France 2008 (90 mins) Director: Michael Pitiot
An extraordinary tale of a scientific mission to gather data crucial for understanding climate change, Tara is the story of how a large multinational scientific organisation led by New Zealander Grant Redvers deliberately strands the ‘Tara’ (formerly Sir Peter Blake’s ‘Seamaster’) so it will drift with the Arctic pack ice throughout the Arctic winter. During the expedition, daily life for the crew focuses around two things: the scientific equipment and its accumulating data, and sheer physical and psychological survival. Unexpected fragmentation of the ice, giant pressure ridges, polar bears, blizzards and the unrelenting extreme cold threaten the mission and sometimes the lives of the crew. Rescue is impossible in the polar night; self-reliance is survival. New scientific discoveries combine with drama to deliver and educational and gripping film.

Duck Journey
Canada 2007 (2 mins) Director: Jerry Newton
A container load of plastic ducks spills into the ocean. Environmental disaster or…. a scientific windfall?

The Plastic Perils Of The Pacific
USA 2008 (4 mins) Director: Brandon Strathmann
Nominated for Best Animation
Our animated hero is a crab on a fantastic journey to clean up the plastic left at sea. The bright red crustacean is loosely based on a delightful drawing by a four-year old.

Wild Ocean
USA 2008 (40 mins) Director: Steve McNicholas
Stunning photography of one of the world’s most spectacular coastlines and the wildlife flourishing above and below the ocean’s surface would be reason enough to see this film, but Wild Ocean offers much more. This big budget film explores the wild KwaZulu–Natal coast of southern Africa, where each year the migration of billions of fish attracts the ocean’s great predators—including humans. It reveals the economic and cultural impact of the ocean and champions the creation of marine reserves; yet, while it explores the causes and effects of human impacts on the fragile ocean ecology, Wild Ocean remains an inspirational and optimistic film that takes audiences to a rare unspoiled marine wilderness to glimpse what the oceans of the world once looked like.

The Deadline
United Kingdon 2008 (51 mins) Director: Philip Stebbing
A well paced, professional documentary, The Deadline follows the attempts by Greenpeace campaigners on the Esperanza to protest the plundering of fish populations off the coast of Africa, and with luck curtail some of the worst offences. Unlicensed ships use packaging from licensed vessels and catches are transferred at sea, out of sight; by-catch is shovelled, dead, overboard; nets use illegal mesh sizes; and official observers on board the fishing vessels are effectively powerless. How long can our oceans survive in the face of this contempt for the basic principles of ecology? While the action takes place far from our shores, the issues are global and New Zealand is held up as an example of how marine reserves have an important role in managing fisheries.

Whetu Rere - The Sea Lion and the Comet
New Zealand 2007 (24 mins) Directors: Kat Baulu and Alastair Jamieson
Best New Zealand Film
On New Zealand's Otago coast, the world's rarest species of sea lion is making a tentative comeback to the mainland. Just one female—'Mum'—is pioneering her species' historic return. Whetu Rere is a quietly told, poignant tale of Mum’s latest pup, whose grasp on life is tenuous and fragile. Locals and conservationists alike strive to care for the pup, but will their efforts be enough?

Karearea - The Pine Falcon
New Zealand 2008 (49 mins) Director: Sandy Crichton
Winner: Palmerston North City Library Award for Best Cinematography New Zealand Film
Winner: Reel Earth Awards Director's Merit Award
Runner Up: Spinning Planet Award for Best New Zealand Film
From the moment Karearea begins, one senses this film will be something special. It delivers on that promise, with spectacular footage of wild New Zealand falcons that reveals behaviour not previously known; with a strong storyline that adroitly weaves several threads to maintain not just interest but tension; and with an emotional appeal that puts the anthropomorphic excesses of many “wildlife” documentaries to shame. It’s all the more remarkable because it was filmed by one person, Sandy Crichton, whose energy does justice to the wildness of the birds. But Karearea is more than a film about falcons. It’s a film about relationships—among the film maker, the birds, the loggers trying to accommodate the falcons while pressured to meet production targets, and aging wildlife photographer George Chance, who three decades ago set the standard for still photography of these iconic New Zealand birds. Beautifully photographed—note the excellent attention to lighting, composition and timing during interviews with George Chance—and with a strong, orginal score by Nick Marsh, Karearea is a beautiful, informative and moving film, excellently presented with drama, humour and poignancy. Clearly one of the festival’s top films.

Wye: Voices from the Valley
United Kingdon 2007 (49 mins) Director: Jamie McPherson
"You've got to have a love for the mountains, and you've got to have a love for the sheep" That's bound to get a laugh—particularly since it comes from a Welshman. A beautiful film, lyrically photographed, Wye: Voices of the Valley explores the relationship between man and nature throughout a year on the River Wye. The story is told by a fisherman, a sheep farmer, a cider maker and a bee keeper and follows the seasonal patterns of their lives and that of the river and its wildlife. A film to help one appreciate the joys of nature and its flows, even in places highly modified by humans.