Movie Recommendations
We have compiled a 10-item list of movies on sustainability and more broadly the diverse relations us humans have with our planet. Here you can find childhood favorites and testimonies of a lifetime; movies with breathtaking shots and documentaries with shocking revelations. Enjoy!
Poster/DVD for Baraka (film).
Baraka by Ron Fricke
Originally shot in 25 countries on six continents, Baraka brought together a series of stunningly photographed scenes to capture what director Ron Fricke calls ‘a guided mediation on humanity.’ It was a shoot of unprecedented technical, logistical and bureaucratic scope that would take 30 months to complete, including 14 months on location, with a custom-built computerized 65mm camera.
‘The goal of the film,’ says producer Mark Magidson, ‘was to reach past language. nationality, religion and politics and speak to the inner viewer.’ (barakasamsara.com)
Trailer: https://youtu.be/ZSfFHxyYJJA
David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet by Alastair Fothergill, Jonathan Hughes & Keith Scholey
Celebrated British naturalist Sir David Attenborough has a broadcasting career spanning over six decades. He has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of our planet and bringing the wonders of the living world to audiences worldwide through ground-breaking natural history series. His work includes: Life on Earth, Planet Earth, and mor recently the Netflix original documentary series Our Planet.
During his lifetime, Sir David Attenborough has seen first-hand the monumental scale of environmental change caused by human actions. Now for the first time, he reflects on the devastating changes he’s witnessed and reveals how together we can address the biggest challenges facing life on our planet.
Produced by Silverback Films and WWF, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet shares Sir David Attenborough’s greatest story yet – his witness statement for the natural world and vision for the future.
Website: https://attenboroughfilm.com/
Trailer: https://youtu.be/64R2MYUt394
Food Inc. by Robert Kenner
American agriculture has in many respects been the envy of the world. U.S. agri-business consistently produces more food on less land and at cheaper cost than the farmers of any other nation. What could possibly be wrong with that? According to the growing ranks of organic farmers, ‘slow food’ activists, and concerned consumers cited in the new documentary Food, Inc., the answer is ‘plenty.’
As recounted in this sweeping, shockingly informative documentary, sick animals, environmental degradation, tainted and unhealthy food, and obesity, diabetes and other health issues are only the more obvious problems with a highly mechanized and centralized system that touts efficiency as the supreme value in food production.
Less obvious is the entrenchment of a powerful group of food producers, that sets the conditions under which today's farmers and food workers operate, in order to maximize profits. The industry also maintains a revolving door of employment for government regulators and legislators to protect its power to set those conditions. Then there is ‘the veil,’ a strange disconnect between the average American and the food they eat. As one chicken industry representative puts it, ‘In a way we're not producing chickens; we're producing food.’ (archive.pov.org)
Trailer: https://youtu.be/eHJiNC_7wuw
The Light Bulb Conspiracy by Cosima Dannoritzer
Planned Obsolescence is the deliberate shortening of product life spans to guarantee consumer demand. As a magazine for advertisers succinctly puts it: The article that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business - and a tragedy for the modern growth society which relies on an ever-accelerating cycle of production, consumption and throwing away.
The Light Bulb Conspiracy combines investigative research and rare archive footage to trace the untold story of Planned Obsolescence, from its beginnings in the 1920s with a secret cartel, set up expressly to limit the life span of light bulbs, to present-day stories involving cutting edge electronics (such as the iPod) and the growing spirit of resistance amongst ordinary consumers.
This film travels to France, Germany, Spain and the US to find witnesses of a business practice which has become the basis of the modern economy, and brings back disquieting pictures from Africa where discarded electronics are piling up in huge cemeteries for electronic waste. (topdocumentaryfilms.com)
Trailer: https://youtu.be/8KSC84K4rcY
Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things by Matt D’Avella
Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things focuses on two men who call themselves “The Minimalists” and have embraced a lifestyle of consuming fewer material goods and spending more time focusing on the important things. The documentary describes the positive outcomes that can result from adopting a minimalist lifestyle while informing its audience of the negative effects of compulsory consumer purchases. Matt D’Avella uses poetic, expository, and observational modes to visually display the beauty of a minimalist lifestyle, while also incorporating compelling content with a persuasive voice to get the desired message across. Documentaries have the power to teach everyone something whether it’s big or small, and Minimalism teaches us that what we need to be happy is to be surrounded not by objects we accumulate but by those we love. (academics.winona.edu)
Trailer: https://youtu.be/0Co1Iptd4p4
More Than Honey by Markus Imhoof
If bees were to disappear from the globe, mankind would have four years left to live. That assertion, attributed to Albert Einstein but perhaps apocryphal, is voiced in More Than Honey, a fascinating but rambling documentary about the decimation of the world’s bee population through the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.
Directed and written by Markus Imhoof, a Swiss filmmaker, the movie is a tutorial on the biology and social behavior of bees and their exploitation in the age of industrial agriculture. Mr. Imhoof is descended from a long line of beekeepers whose cultivation of bees and harvesting of their honey are still carried out in more or less traditional ways. The film approvingly contrasts Mr. Imhoof’s family tradition with the techniques of modern agribusiness in which bee colonies are trucked from place to place to pollinate enormous orchards. (nytimes.com)
Trailer: https://youtu.be/2NT05qEJxUk
https://filmsfortheearth.org/en/films/when-two-worlds-collide
When Two World Collide by Heidi Brandenburg & Mathew Orzel
Over the past decade, Peru boasted one of the world’s fastest growing economies, largely dependent on the extraction of natural gas and oil from the Amazon, and of a long list of minerals from the Andes. Yet, this growth strategy has led to dozens of social conflicts around current and proposed extractibon sites throughout the country.
When Two Worlds Collide, a new documentary directed by Heidi Branderburg and Mathew Orzel, examines indigenous activism in Peru by focusing on the events that led to, and the aftermath of, the lethal clashes between indigenous protesters and policemen in 2009 outside the Amazonian town of Bagua. Although siding with the indigenous movement, Branderburg and Orzel present different voices within the debate that ensued in Peru, ranging from Garcia’s ministers to the father of a policeman that died that day. The film’s narrative centres on Alberto Pizango, an indigenous Shawi man who served as the President of AIDESEP, Peru’s national indigenous Amazonian organisation, in the run up to the events at Bagua. (theconversation.com)
Trailer: https://youtu.be/Qe9ZybqKOLg
Do you have any movies to recommend? Let us know and we’ll make sure to include them in this list!