Refugees of the Blue Planet is a remarkable film that connects the unseemingly related geographic regions of Western Canada, the Maldives, and Brazil in a beautifully shot and slick one hour work. Avid documentary fans will already be well-aware of the central message of this Canadian documentary: corporate greed is not only consuming the very earth we live on, but leaving a path of poverty and misery in a scorched wake while “the North” continues in the blissful ignorance of privilege. There is a twist however, and it is this angle that the film takes that makes it such an informative and fascinating document of economic globalization and the modern side-effects. According to the UN environmental refugees now outnumber political refugees at a staggering 25 million. And as the film points out in a very subtle nod to optimism, it is an affliction that affects not only the very poor, but the wealthy as well, leading at least one interviewed expert to have hope for change.
From rising sea levels to hurricanes to monoculture “green deserts” to sour gas leaks in Alberta, the extreme corporate malfeasance, cajoled by the myopic and self-interested hand of governments like King Klein’s are exposed. And what is left are broken communities, decimated homes, jobless and dejected souls angry and despondent with nowhere to direct their frustrations. Enter Refugees of the Blue Planet: the film provides a platform, an outlet which serves as a conduit between those who may be sitting in the audience unmoved by recent environmental disasters like hurricanes and floods, to channel the stories of the survivors, of refugees seeking many things from justice to a place to sleep at night. The characters we meet are scattered postcards from the neoliberal project, an experiment gone terribly, viciously, wrong. The connections between environmental crisis and unchecked corporate rapaciousness have never been clearer than as they are in this work. The film’s technical troubles - redundant NFB voice of god narration, the art-destroying voice-over in lieu of subtitles, emotionally manipulative music - are not enough to detract from this intense portrait of the perils of neoliberal globalization.
Visit the film's NFB site here.
Posted by Ezra Winton on October 9, 2007 in
A powerful new documentary examining the effects of privatization has emerged from Germany. THE BIG SELLOUT weaves a story of mismanagement, neocolonialism, suffering and resistance from four separate corners of the globe. In the film we meet four central characters, beginning with Simon, a British train driver. Simon clearly articulates the consequences of the systematic dismantling of what was once Europe’s best public transportation system. Since Thatcher privatized the rail systems, wages have dropped, employment has dropped, service has denigrated, and no one wants to take responsibility for the rail lines (until recently, the government has stepped in and re-nationalized that one aspect sheerly out of safety concerns and a massive PR disaster after several deaths from rail collisions). Simon is a force for public service and organized labour, and brings the sometimes philosophically lofty discussions of “common good” down to earth.
FULL STORY + COMMENTS
Posted by Ezra Winton on September 10, 2007 in
With the possible exception of some work produced by post-modern wunderkind, photographs that are out of focus, poorly exposed and ill composed are rarely compelling. But The Border Film Project, a collection featuring 150 of such unskilled images, is about as compelling as a book of photography can be.
Rudy Adler, Victoria Criado, and Brett Huneycutt distributed hundreds of disposable cameras on both sides of the US-Mexico border. On one hand there were migrants preparing to illegally cross the border and enter the United States, as thousands of their compatriots do each year. On the other were the Minutemen, armed American citizens who voluntarily patrol the border in the hopes of stoping northward migration.
The three editors soon received over 2000 photographs from the migrants and Minutemen, offering perspectives from both sides of the immigration debate and opening a window through which we gain an intimate perspective of this high stakes game of cat and mouse.
Although photographs from both sides often depict friends, family, and desert landscape, the similarities end there. In documenting themselves, the Minutemen are found engaged in activities reminiscent of a hunting trip. Some have dozed off in lawn chairs, beer cans in hand and pasty bellies turned towards the sun. Others meanwhile are focused on target practice, or are found peering through binoculars off into the horizon, in search of their target. Friendly and fun, the Minutemen have painted themselves in stars, stripes and smiles, as well as the occasional Starbucks and Sam Adams. [More...]
FULL STORY + COMMENTS
Posted by Rob Maguire on June 28, 2007 in
The Popular Movement in Oaxaca has its own artist movement, the Oaxacan Assembly of Revolutionary Artists (ASAR-O). A new exhibition at ABC No Rio in NYC brings together woodblock prints and stencil street art created by ASAR-O during the Oaxaca uprising.
ASAR-O was formed during the popular uprising that occurred in Oaxaca during the Summer and Fall of 2006. When police failed to remove striking teachers from the town zocalo, an impromptu citizen’s assembly was formed, the Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca (APPO). Artists took to the streets to communicate the demands of APPO and to help mobilize citizen support. Eyewitness accounts say that streets were covered in art and stencils supporting the uprising, much of which has now been removed and painted over by state officials trying to bury the memory of the popular revolt.
Show runs from April 26 to May 24.
Posted by Michael Lithgow on April 27, 2007 in
CAM BUENOS AIRES | 1976-1983 | A stencil referencing the Argentine Dirty War.
XICO GONZALEZ | ¡Ya Basta! End Discrimination |
In the United States, “coercive interrogation techniques” are allowed on detainees in the so-called War on Terror. We’ve seen the photos and heard the testimony from Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. Coersive interrogation is a not so subtle end-run around American law which makes the use of torture a crime.
Artists Serena Wallace and Nancy Popp have teamed up to create a video installation named after the legislation that continues to make torture a crime – United States Code Section 2340A. In the video, the artists pair the dehumanizing language of the justice department lawyers with the sound of a populace inured to the spectacle of torture in the media.
The video is currently screening as a part of the UC Santa Barbara series Critical Issues in America: Torture and the Future through June 2007. And will also screen on April 23rd at the University of California alongside a talk by James Yee, former US Army Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay.
Posted by Michael Lithgow on April 18, 2007 in
Call it unprecedented. Call it daring. Call it what you will, but when I see these images of hollow Brazilian billboards, I am tempted to call São Paulo's advertising ban simply beautiful.
City officials in this metropolis of 11 million passed legislation banning billboards, neon signs and electronic panels as of the new year, and the effects of the law have begun to sink in. Billboards have been stripped of their commercial clothing, the stark nakedness of the abandoned frames reminding passers by of the once stolen public space now reclaimed.
Corporations and ad agencies are enraged, naturally, leaving boardrooms in a tumultuous tiff. Fortunately, it looks as if they won't be able to bully or bribe their way out of this one. The advertising law is "a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash," author Roberto Pompeu de Toledo wrote in Veja, a weekly newsmagazine. "For once in life, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost."
The counterarguments put forth by the corporate world lack even a pinch of persuasion. Marcel Solimeo, chief economist of the Commercial Association of São Paulo, complained about the blow dealt to fellow capitalists in an an interview with International Herald Tribune: "We live in a consumer society and the essence of capitalism is the availability of information about products." Touché.
While the battle rages on--and while São Paulo's residents enjoy their newly liberated visual space--Tony de Marco's photos will take you to the city's streets so you can see these monuments to reclaimed space for yourself.
Posted by Rob Maguire on April 15, 2007 in
BENIGNPXL | Che, Our Help For All Ages |
YOANA YELLIN & MARC OXBORROW | Shared Dreams | Shared Dreams is an annual collaboration between American and Cuban graphic designers that aims to produce a series of posters on a distinct theme. The image on the left by Cuban artist Yoana Yellin is from the 2005 series entitled "Dreams of Peace"; the poster on the right by American designer Marc Oxborrow illustrates last year's theme, "Love Conquers All".
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