Films for the next film festival

[steve]

Susannah has suggested this award winning documentary: A CONVENIENT TRUTH: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil (2007).

A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil is an informative, inspirational documentary aimed at sharing ideas to provoke environment-friendly and cost-effective changes in cities worldwide. The documentary focuses on innovations in transportation, recycling, social benefits including affordable housing, seasonal parks, and the processes that transformed Curitiba into one of the most livable cities in the world.

[steve]

If the oil runs out is a BBC production that switches between documentary and drama through the hour long programme. It was made in 2006. The drama part is set in 2016 with oil heading towards $100 a barrel and shows the impacts on a related group of people, inc an oil engineer drilling in ANWR.

It's good because it's pretty accessible for ordinary people not familiar with subject. Peak oil isn't mentioned though it's obvious that's what it is about. It's also comes across as very real as we've just lived through the beginnings of something similar. The accent is more on transport and queues for oil than the economy although one of the main characters has lost his job by the end.

It's made all the more powerful by the fact that the prices mentioned have more or less been reached this year (it's set in 2016).

Includes interviews with Matt Simmons who says in it: All the major wars of the last century have been fought over energy. (I've been thinking we could screen some stuff on Nuclear War like Threads for instance.)

It ends with an open question of what comes after the oil age?

[steve]

Below are some extracts from a list for a Peak Oil Film Festival with a few mentioned we don't have already:

• Blind Spot (2008 - 86 minutes). What if all of the expectations you have about the future are completely wrong? Interviews with Derrick Jensen, Albert Bartlett, James Hansen, William Catton, Richard Heinberg and more.
  “Doubtless Peak Oil will come, the timing is a matter of debate. However we may be better off if it is not too long delayed, because it will accelerate what must be done to prevent environmental catastrophe.” -Noam Chomsky
  
• Sprawling from Grace, Driven to Madness (2008) looks good. With James Howard Kunstler. (82 minutes)
  
  
  
  
• Crude: The incredible journey of oil Austrailian documentary. A lot of material online.
  
• Escape from Suburbia: Does the American Dream Have a Future? Not supposed to be as good as End of Suburbia but who knows? (2007 - 95 minutes)
  
  
  
  
• After the Peak docudrama about the end of cheap oil. 2007. (27 minutes)
  
• Yu Koyo Peya How much longer can industrial civilization last before it undermines the basis of its existence, imploding due to growth and complexity spiraling out of control? Why is this collapse scenario nearly inevitable? (on Youtube)

Others I'm not so sure about:

• The Prize PBS series based on the book by Daniel Yergin, 1992. Very good Amazon reviews (480 minutes)
  
• Water - NZ short directed by Chris Graham, 2005. (12 minutes)
  
• The Future of Food - directed by Deborah Koons, 2004. (88 minutes) possibly dated.
  
• The Nature of Things: Food or Famine CBC series with David Suzuki, 1997. (120 minutes)
  
• Taken for a Ride » Directed by Jim Kein and Martha Olson, 1996. (52 minutes)
  
• Pitra, Putra Aur Dharamyuddha Directed by Anand Patwardhan, 1994. (120 minutes)
  
• Soylent Green Apparently excellent film about overpopulation 1973. (97 minutes)
  
• The Greening of Cuba By Marilyn Brochardt, 1996. (38 minutes)
  
• Beyond Organic: The Vision of Fairview Gardens tells the story of this amazing farm and its long battle to survive in the face of rapid suburban development. It explores the efforts of Ableman and his staff to diversify the farm, open it to educational tours for thousands of people -- especially schoolchildren -- and defend it against angry neighbors, hostile public officials and developers eager to re-zone the land for condominiums. It draws a sharp contrast between community supported agriculture and conventional chemical farming, and it calls on organic farmers to remember basic principles, including fair labor practices, as their farms grow in size and power. Narrated by Meryl Streep 2002. (33 minutes)
  
• Affluenza Diagnoses the "disease" of materialism and prescribes its antidote, simple living. 1997. (56 minutes)
  
• Escape from Affluenza this sequel uses expert commentary, thought-provoking vignettes and humor to show how people can reduce their consumption and simplify their lives. 1998. (56 minutes)
  

There's also more films at the Northwest Environmental Education Council

[steve]

A few more:

Fuel looks like a very professional US production just released a couple of weeks ago. Possibly a bit on the mainstream side but probably attractive to some.

Also soon out is The Road which is based on a book which was recommended by someone on Radio Ecoshock. Might not be suitable for a public screening but we could do something around it - group visit to the cinema, or go leafleting outside. Anyway it's not out yet but will be next year sometime I imagine.

From this thread it's amazing how much stuff is out there. It seems like we've already got something like a year's worth of films!!

NEXT SHEFFIELD FILM SCREENINGS
There's a get together to sort out the next round of screenings next Monday evening (8th Dec). Let me know if you want to get involved with this - the more the better, please get in touch .

[steve]

Just found this web page full of peak oil films with some good shorts, interviews, lectures etc.

There's also a section on climate change, permaculture and many other topics.

[chris]

• Yu Koyo Peya How much longer can industrial civilization last before it undermines the basis of its existence, imploding due to growth and complexity spiraling out of control? Why is this collapse scenario nearly inevitable? (on Youtube)

I watched this one last night, I don't think it's really good enough for showing at a screening.

[steve]

There's a bunch of interesting looking film shorts on peak oil here:

http://www.peakaware.com/

[steve]

Well when someone usually diametrically opposed starts agreeing with us it's got to be good. On Thursday Jeremy Clarkson, presenter for car programme Top Gear, said we'd better get ourselves an allotment...

I have views that this crisis is a bit like the meteorite coming towards us; the politicians know just how catastrophic it's going to be and just think, "Well there's nothing we can do so we'll not bother telling them", fiddle around, drop the interest ... I believe we're sort of heading towards the end of days economicaly speaking, and that you'd better get yourself an allotment, personally.

Q: What do you base financial armageddon on?

I just talked to a couple of bankers who said, who just say "It's so bad". Who is it? Buffet the other day when they said this is very bad and he said "We're not even in it yet". You know we haven't even started the problem.

2m 15s long and worth showing: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7766057.stm

[chris]

Blood and Oil - The Middle East in World War I

Exposes Western greed and political intrigue laying the foundation for wars, coups, revolts, oppressive dictators and military interventions in today's Middle East. Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, modern Turkey and other hot spots are born as the British and French divide the "fruits of victory" in World War I.

http://dvds.inecom.com/products/consumer/bloodandoil/

I have ordered this...

Blood and Oil

The notion that oil motivates America's military engagements in the Middle East has long been dismissed as nonsense or mere conspiracy theory. Blood and Oil, a new documentary based on the critically-acclaimed work of Nation magazine defense correspondent Michael T. Klare, challenges this conventional wisdom to correct the historical record. The film unearths declassified documents and highlights forgotten passages in prominent presidential doctrines to show how concerns about oil have been at the core of American foreign policy for more than 60 years – rendering our contemporary energy and military policies virtually indistinguishable. In the end, Blood and Oil calls for a radical re-thinking of US energy policy, warning that unless we change direction, we stand to be drawn into one oil war after another as the global hunt for diminishing world petroleum supplies accelerates.

http://www.bloodandoilmovie.com/

It is good, though mostly aimed at people in the US who don't realise that the imperial wars are resources wars over oil... So it misses some of the deeper truths about some events it refers to, like the installation of the Shar in Iran -- the CIA's first coup:

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état deposed the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and his cabinet, and was effected by Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, SIS, and CIA agents working with anti-government civilians and army officers. The attempt to encourage a coup d'état, Operation Ajax required CIA man Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.'s bribing government officials, the news media, and businessmen, [1] to allow imposing retired Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi and Imperial Guard Col. Nematollah Nassiri as the government.[2]

This deposition of a formally-elected civil government was "a critical event in post-war world history", because it re-installed the unpopular Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, leading a pro-Western dictatorship, that, in the event, contributed to his deposition by the anti-Western Islamic Republic in 1979. [3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Irani ... 7%C3%A9tat

And the same, of course, can be said about Bin Laden and also there was a third event where the Blood and Oil failed to mention what was happening behind the scenes. However I still think it would be worth screening.

[craig]

Would be good to do some more films of Rob Hopkins' presentations. There's one that starts here:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3B0zQ1pJAaY
(high quality download available from Transition Network)
Craig