Theme:
WORLD ORDER



World order seizes into the economic structures of the world that keep poor poor and enrich the rich. Various social movements in South and in North, i.e. Degrowth movement, have questioned this ideology based on continuous growth.


4. SCREENING: Rascals and Good Guys / Veijareita ja hyviksiä
Thursday 6.10

at 19.00, Kino Engel 2

Cowboys in India
India

2009, 76 min, Documentary, dvd
Director: Simon Chambers
Producer: Rise Films   

In a remote and impoverished region of India, a London filmmaker is unaware of the trouble he will cause his two endearing, bumbling local guides as they investigate the Corporate Social Responsibility programme of a respected London based mining company. The company plans to chop the top off a local tribe´s sacred mountain, promising to bring all the benefits of modernity to the area. But many of the tribal people vow to fight with their bows and arrows against ´enforced development´, preferring a simple life in nature. As conflicting allegations of illegality and intrigue accumulate, this odyssey into the hidden underbelly of the Indian economic boom, becomes even more surreal as the three main characters try to unearth the elusive truth, and the filmmaker´s ethical stance towards his characters is put to the test as he tries to get his film ´in the can´.

Niyamgiri You Are Still Alive
India

2009, 16 min, Documentary, dvd

Director: Suma Josson

In 2006 Sterlite, a subsidiary of UK mining company Vedanta built a refinery in Niyamgiri Hills, Orissa, India. The intention was to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri Hills whose forests are reserved. It is also home to indigenous communities who are dependent on it for their livelihood.

Mining on Niyamgiri will destroy its rich biodiversity and wildlife. Niyamgiri is the source of two rivers Bansadhara and Nagaballi. The refinery consumes 30,000 cubic meters of water per day severely affecting the ecological systems and the communities. The toxic waste material from the refinery pollutes air, ground and water.

Since 2003 different groups have mobilized to fight Vedanta. On August 24th, 2010 a turning point was reached in the struggle to save Niyamgiri.


8. SCREENING: Good Fortunes? / (Epä)onnen lahjat 

Friday 7.10

at 17.00. Kino Engel 2

When the Water Ends

Kenya

2010, 16 min, Documentary, dvd

Director: Evan Abramson

Producer: Mediastorm, University of Yale

In recent years, herdsmen in Kenya and Ethiopia have faced challenges unlike any in living memory. Environmental changes are happening faster than before due to climate change, deforestation and land degradation. This has forced the pastoralists to range more widely in search of suitable water and land. That search has brought tribal groups in Ethiopia and Kenya in increasing conflict, as pastoral communities kill each other over water and grass. This video tells the story of this conflict and of the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of Eastern Africa.

Good Fortune

Kenya

2009, 73 min, Documentary, hdcam

Director: Landon van Soest
Producer: Transient Pictures

Good Fortune explores how massive, international efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa may be undermining the very communities they aim to benefit. Through intimate portraits of two Kenyans battling to save their homes from large-scale development organizations, the film presents a unique opportunity to experience foreign aid through the eyes of the people it is intended to benefit.

On the outskirts of Nairobi, Silva’s home and business in Africa’s largest squatter community are being demolished as part of a United Nations slum-upgrading project. In the rural countryside, Jackson’s farm is being flooded by an American investor who hopes to alleviate poverty by creating a multi-million dollar rice farm.

Interweaving meditative portraits of its characters, Good Fortune examines the real-world impact of international aid. With a broad scope and intimate style, the film portrays gripping stories of human perseverance and suggests that the answers for Africa lie in the resilience of its people.


14.SCREENING: Finland is too Small / Suomi on liian pieni
Saturday 8.10
at 15.00, Kino Engel 1

Sustainable on Paper

Brazil

2010, 40 min, Documentary, dvd
Director: Leo Broers and An-Katrien Lecluyse

Producer: Uilekot

Despite some plantations in Brazil being Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, they are nevertheless beset by problems. Using the example of Brazilian-Scandinavian transnational Veracel, the film documents why many FSC-certified tree plantations are controversial. Despite the FSC certificate attesting to a well-managed plantation, communities surrounded by thousands of hectares of eucalyptus speak of dropping water levels and water sources polluted by pesticides. They speak of biodiversity and the sustenance it provided replaced by a monoculture offering little more than raw material for pulp and paper – 98 per cent of which is for export, including to the EU. The film also questions how hundreds of pending cases regarding labour law violations escaped detection by the certifiers issuing the FSC label. With such shortcomings persisting in what is considered the most stringent forest certification scheme globally, what lies behind the logo of the schemes where even the sustainability ´on paper´ is in question?

Stora Enso in Brasil
Brazil

2007, 27 min, Documentary, dvd

Director: Kerstin Edquist, Magnólia Fagundes, Frida Svensson and Helena Soderqvist

Stora Enso is a half Swedish half Finnish company in forest and paper industry. The company has sold its lands in Scandinavia and started investing in foreign markets, e. g. in Brazil where they plant eucalyptus and produce pulp. Plantations are still widening in many regions in South America. Stora Enso has taken the lands from indigenous people claiming they are not rightful owners of the land.  Indigenous people are fighting for their territory to be given back to them. According to the Brazilian constitution and the international law, the indigenous people have the right to their former territories, but the majority of their lands are still under control of Stora Enso and other pulp companies. Stora Enso’s actions have had many social, cultural and ecological impacts on local people’s lives and the environment.

Defend Life

Uruguay

2009, 2 min, Animation, dvd
Director: Flavio Pazos
Producer: World Rainforest Movement

A short animation describes in simple words the difference between a forest ecosystem and a tree plantation to local communities.


21. SCREENING: Bamako
Sunday 9.10

at 12.00, Kino Engel 1

Bamako

Mali

2006, 115 min, Drama, dvd

Director: Abderrahmane Sissako

Producer: Archipel 33, Chinguitty Films, Mali Images, Arte France Cinéma

Melé is a bar singer, her husband Chaka is out of work and the couple is on the verge of breaking up. In the courtyard of the house they share with other families, a trial court has been set up. African civil society spokesmen have taken proceedings against the World Bank and the IMF whom they blame for Africa´s woes. Amidst the pleas and the testimonies, life goes on in the courtyard. Chaka does not seem to be concerned by this novel Africa´s desire to fight for its rights.

Bamako is a poetic and moving film, which brings sharply into relief the effects of globalization on Africa.


27. SCREENING: Struggles for Water / Taisteluja vedestä 

Sunday 9.10
at 21.00, Kino Engel 1

Resisting Coastal Invasion
India

2007, 52 min, Documentary, dvd

Director: KP Sasi

Producer: Visual Search.org

More than 250 million people inhabit India’s coastline. Among them are the fishing communities, directly dependent for a living on marine and coastal natural resources. Today, both coastal ecosystems as well as the customary rights of fishing communities over coastal areas are severely eroded by developmental activities and market interests – tourism, industrialization, sand mining, infrastructure-building, aquaculture and rapid urbanization. The only piece of legislation ever enacted to regulate developmental activities along the Indian coast was the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification of 1991.Not surprisingly, in today’s age of globalization, the CRZ Notification is increasingly being regarded as an impediment to free market. Moves are afoot to dispense with it altogether. What are the implications of such a deregulation agenda? Who benefits? Who loses? Who’s accountable? Who is to blame? Resisting the Coastal Invasion is a documentary directed by KP Sasi that explores these questions. It captures the struggles of fishing communities who are fighting tooth and nail against the takeover of their lands by the forces of globalization.

The Source of Life for Sale
India
2004, 70 min, Documentary, dvd
Director: KP Sasi

Producer: Visual Search.org

Panning Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, local people speak out against commercial interests soaking up their water resources. "Can´t they just bomb us instead" asks a local farmer in Plachimada, who has no farm left after the ´colonizers´ sucked dry the aquifers and spread sludge all around.  It is such direct, in-your-face statements that give K P Sasi´s film its strength and documentary value. It´s all about shared anger, anguish, hope. Not all fire and brimstone and sermons, but a film with a flow, a narrative, stunning visuals of rivers, rivulets, rain, waterfalls and more. The film´s tempo builds up gradually, from activist C R Neelakantan´s description of rivers as the bloodstream of nature, to the angry outbursts of people denied water. Issues are starkly brought out - the sale of a part of the Sheonath river to a water firm in Chhattisgarh; a human chain against the sale of the Malampuzha reservoir; tribal protest against the diversion of the Bhavani; struggles against the biggest multinational cola company in Shivaganga, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh.