World Changes is a category at RIFF which presents films about various issues that are posing a threat to nature and humanity in one way or another. This year, the category includes seven films from all around the world. One of them will receive a special prize as the best film of the category, which is in cooperation with nature.is.
A panel in connection with the World Changes category will be held at RIFF, and two directors of films in the category will also be guests of the festival and take part in the panel. Those are
Marc Wolfensberger, director of Oil Rocks: City Above The Sea, and Sylvie Van Brabant, director of Earth Keepers.
These are the films of the World Changes category:
A Sea Change (USA, 2009)
Imagine a world without fish. Scientists are now documenting an increase in ocean acidity that will result in a bottom-up collapse of the world‘s fisheries lasting for millions of years. When Norwegian-American Sven Huseby first learned about ocean acidification, he committed himself to a search for answers and solutions. Sven’s quest takes him around the world to meet with the scientists, activists and entrepreneurs who could prevent the worst-case scenarios. Sven’s frequent visits with his five-year-old grandson, Elias, make clear what is at stake as the future of the oceans rests in our hands. Winner of several festival awards, A Sea Change
is a powerful journey into the devastating but poorly known side of climate change known as ocean acidification
.
Toxic Playground (Spain, Sweden, Chile, 2009)
Swedish Lars, 23, is studying film in Chile. 12-year old Yoselin is a belly dancer and wants to become a doctor, but her hips are beginning to crumble. Lars finds that hundreds of kids in Cerro Chuño have fallen badly ill because of toxic waste from his home town in Sweden. Lars tries to find out whether Boliden, the mining company involved, is accountable for what has happened to Yoselin and the other kids. Boliden refuses to take any responsibility for what has happened. But Lars finds Rolf, the former head of environment of Boliden. Rolf admit that his advice to the company was necessary for the decision to send the waste away and surpisengly decides to follow Lars back to Chile to find out what really happened.
Winds of Sand, Women of rock (Belgium, Austria, France, 2009)
For the Tubu people, living in the Sahara desert is both harsh and very simple. Men and women have clearly defined roles. The men are camel breeders, the women are tied to the home. For anything a woman wants to do, she needs her husband’s permission. For the women, this condition would be unbearable if it wasn’t for the annual caravan that takes them on a 1500 kilometre journey on foot across the desert to collect dates. Even if the conditions are extreme, selling their date harvest brings them economic independence, pride and self confidence.
Earth Keepers (Canada, 2009)
Earth Keepers traces the quest of Mikael Rioux – a young activist from Trois-Pistoles, Quebec – who first lobbied to save the river he loved as a child and has gone on to defend a plethora of environmental causes. Once an angry young man, now a young father, concerned about the legacy he will leave to his son, Mikael has courage and the will to learn. “I finally got fed up with just raising issues,” he says. “I wanted to find answers and concrete solutions.” That credo drives his quest and is also the common thread in the stories told in this inspiring documentary.
The Blood Of The Rose (UK, Germany, Japan, 2009)
Henry Singer’s gripping film tells the story of the extraordinary life and brutal death of filmmaker-turned-conservationist Joan Root, and of her campaign to save her beloved Lake Naivasha in Kenya. The film is both a biopic and a classic whodunit. Who killed Joan Root? A beautifully crafted and heartfelt homage to a fearless campaigner which also provokes some unsettling questions about trying to stop ‘progress’ in the developing world.
Oil Rocks - City above the Sea (Switzerland, 2009)
Oil Rocks - behind the enigmatic name lies the first and largest offshore oil-platform ever built, a vast city in the middle of the Caspian Sea, built by Stalin in 1949. 60 years on, Oil Rocks is still operational and the first western film crew ever receives access. Just imagine: 200 kilometers of bridges, thousands of oil workers, hundreds of platforms, up to nine-story buildings, a park and sports field, nothing less then an oil-rig Atlantis, only real. Combining archive footage from the Soviet era and the exclusive new footage, the film tells the story of this timeless place and it's inhabitants.
The Mermaid’s Tears: Oceans Of Plastic (France, 2009)
Oceans are rapidly becoming the world’s rubbish dump. Every km of ocean now contains an average of 74,000 pieces of plastic. A ‘plastic soup’ of waste, killing hundreds of thousands of animals every year and leaching chemicals slowly up the food chain. In Holland, scientists researching the decline of the fulmar bird found plastic in the stomachs of 95% of all samples; In Germany, chemicals leached from plastic have been found to affect the reproductive systems of animals, while in California, conservationists are seeing increasing numbers of whales and dolphins die agonising deaths, their guts blocked with rubbish. What will be the long term impact of this ’plastic pollution’? Can anything be done to clean up our oceans?