After a year of intensive global film-making (8 short films in 13 months!), our little UNU media caravan is trundling out for Copenhagen. This week Megumi and I are heading off to the COP15 to present the “Indigenous Voices of Climate Change” film festival. The festival being MCed by Marilyn Wallace, will be screening over 5 days at National Museum of Denmark 9-13th, Dec 4-6pm.
The festival is a 4 hour program of videos from communities, friends, and colleagues in Australia, Africa, South America, Arctic circle, Central Asia, Iran, PNG… (basically across the globe) presenting community stories that climate change is happening and hurting now. These assessment case studies provide the Conference of the parties evidence, references, but most importantly amplified voices demanding changes to behavioural responsibility. Sadly, this voice is almost missing from the official governmental delegation lists and from the rather stale scientific tit-for tat being splattered across the newspapers of late.
If you are in Copnehagen, please come down to the museum to be a part of this extraordinary global movement. Admission is Free! In particular, don’t miss Indigenous Day on 12th December which promises to be a full day of exhibits, films, panel discussions, dancing, music and other creative outpourings. A full list of the films and screening program can be downloaded here: www.ourworld.unu.edu/COP15_filmfestival
With a UN delegate passes and small HDV camera in hand, Megumi and I also hope report a little from inside the Bella Centre too. Stay tuned to our twitter feed for updates: @cittw, @luvmegumi, @ourworld20
Ten years in the making and culled from 5000 hours of footage, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC reveals the effect the web is having on our society, as seen through the eyes of “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of”, artist, futurist and visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director Ondi Timoner (DIG! — which also won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2004 — making Timoner the only director to win that prestigious award twice) documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives.
Harris, often called the “Warhol of the Web”, founded Pseudo.com, the first Internet television network during the infamous dot-com boom of the 1990s. He also curated and funded the ground breaking project “Quiet” in an underground bunker in NYC where over 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days at the turn of the millennium. With Quiet, Harris proved how we willingly trade our privacy for the connection and recognition we all deeply desire, but with every technological advancement such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, becomes more elusive. Through his experiments, including a six-month stint living with his girlfriend under 24-hour electronic surveillance which led to his mental collapse, Harris demonstrated the price we pay for living in public.
Here are some recent snaps from my filming mission in the Gobi desert, Mongolia. As mentioned, have been shooting a small UNU story about the disastrous desertification of the Gobi. The story will focus on the efforts of a small Gobi/Japanese research project.
Technical word of advice: if you are taking camera equipment into the desert…. make sure you take aerosol of canned air, a self-pumping air brush in your pocket and an air-proof camera bag (eg pelican case). Even with all this, absolutely everything was caked in dust… every evening!
In Mongolia this week, I have been attending a conference on desertification of the Gobi region. Its a very interesting topic and with a group of Young Japanese scientists, I will be going on an expedition to the Gobi tomorrow.
Being around all these boffins, one sometimes feels slightly inadequate for conversation at the dinner table. So, in order to have a base level knowledge of these topics, (and also to drip feed my secret desire to be a paleo-climatologist), I have been exploring Meteorlogy, Hydrology and Geology education websites.
да! Its slightly left field, but for those interested in understanding Meteorlogy & Hydrology cycles, take a look at this great resource which has free interactive learning modules. http://www.meted.ucar.edu/
Greetings from Irkutsk, Russia. Waiting in transit before heading into Mongolia.
For your viewing pleasure, here’s the first of the three Central Asian Indigenous Perspectives of Climate Change videos. Might still have a few errors here and there, but should all be fixed before the video festival in Copenhagen in December. Feedback is welcome!
