Films/Programs
Planet Cinema
Helping to heal the environment, one film at a time.
Cinema has the power to move us to tears, anger us, and make us laugh. But it can also educate us about the world’s problems and—more importantly—inspire us to do something about it. That’s why SIFF is continuing with its third annual Planet Cinema series, showcasing international films with stories about global climate change, alternative fuels, land conservation, and sustainable farm practices. The documentaries, dramas, and essays selected in this year’s program cover a broad spectrum of environmentally-conscious filmmaking, from sobering treatises about what mega-agricultural corporations are adding to our food supply to charming tales about neighborhoods working to turn urban blight into productive farmland. We also get a glimpse behind the scenes of eco-activists who are trying to save the biodiversity of the planet’s oceans. With each film, we gain a little more understanding and insight into the complex and evolving relationship between humans and nature.
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USA, 2009, 70 min.
Twenty years ago, local filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson interviewed hippies at a “healing gathering” in Eastern Washington. Now he tracks the same folks to see what became of their environmental utopias. Today, in the midst of global warming, the voices of these flower children is prophetic.
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USA, 2009, 90 min.
Winner Best Documentary - SIFF 2009 Golden Space Needle Audience Awards
The Cove is a fast-paced exposé of Japan's dolphin trade. Richard Barry, the man who trained Flipper, is now an activist who seeks to free captive dolphins. Louie Psihoyos (a National Geographic veteran) and a team of activists and divers show exactly what film can do as they proceed with anarchic vigor
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United Kingdom, 2009, 90 min.
At once visually captivating and chilling, The End of the Line serves as a dire warning of the impact commercial overfishing has had on the planet's already strained ecosystem. This startling and engaging documentary examines the world's dwindling fish population with the potential human cost firmly in mind.
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Canada, 2009, 104 min.
Director John Greyson’s operatic tour-de-force tells the story of two of the patron saints of AIDS activism, Tim McCaskell and Zackie Achmat, in a postmodern pastiche of palindromes, queer history, music history, and Catholic theology (with an albino squirrel thrown in for good measure).
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USA, 2008, 94 min.
Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on the nation’s food industry, exposing practices that wreak havoc on our environment and heath. Featuring interviews with authors Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan, as well as harrowing testimony from people from all walks of life, Food, Inc. is a call to dining-table activism.
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USA, 2008, 80 min.
Rising out of the ashes of the devastating riots of 1992, a community garden in South Central Los Angeles becomes a testament to the neighborhood’s resilience. This award-winning documentary shows how residents had to rally once more in an attempt to save this symbol of self-sufficiency from developers’ bulldozers.
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Canada, 2009, 74 min.
Celebrated documentarian Ron Mann gives fungus its due with this multi-faceted perspective about the power of the mushroom. Several mycologists (mushroom experts) celebrate the various culinary, medicinal, hallucinatory, and environmental ways mushrooms are a vital part of everyday life. Who knew mushrooms might one day save the world?
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France, 2008, 88 min.
As small family farming disappears from the French countryside, the people who have worked the land for generations refuse to give up and let their livelihoods crumble around them. Director Raymond Depardon shares his affection and respect for these troubled families through striking images that divulge the naked truth of the situation.
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USA, 2008, 102 min.
Hero to conservationists and villain to hunters, marine environmentalist Paul Watson commits himself 100 percent to his cause. In this stirring profile, director and narrator Ron Colby explores Watson's beliefs, blunders, and triumphs. He makes a convincing case that the world's endangered oceans are better off due to Watson’s dedicated and frequently controversial efforts.
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Japan, 2008, 106 min.
A teacher who wants his students to learn “the real connection between life and food” suggests they adopt a piglet to care for and then eat at the end of the year. But the more attached the students grow to the animal, the harder the question of its fate becomes.
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Norway, 2008, 85 min.
Can you imagine a world without fish? A Sea Change follows Sven Huseby in his quest to discover what is happening to the world’s oceans. After reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s “A Darkening Sea,” Sven becomes obsessed with the rising acidity of the oceans and what this “sea change” bodes for mankind.
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China, 2008, 98 min.
Set amid the imposing mountains of western China, the dreams, disappointments and resolve of a tightly knit family of coalminers poignantly reflect the plight of a vast number of ordinary laborers unable to climb the ladder of the country's post-Communist economy.
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USA, 2009, 73 min.
Two 11-year-old girls take you on an entertaining and enlightening journey into what it takes to get food from the fields to the family table. Exploring everything from school lunches and health to sustainable farming, these engaging young women will instill hope and active engagement within all members of your household. Recommended for all ages.
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