09.05.2013
Find out more about his work at http://www.insightshare.org/
03.05.2013
51 films from 20 different countries will be screened between May 16th and May 26th 2013 in the cinema of Rio de Janeiro´s famous Modern Art Museum (MAM). The International Uranium Film Festival is an annual festival dedicated to all films, short and feature documentaries, movies and animated films about nuclear energy, atomic bombs, nuclear accidents, uranium mining, depleted uranium weapons and radioactive risks. The best short, feature and animated films of the festival are awarded with the “Yellow Oscar”.
Two important new films of the Festival are for example: The feature documentary film “Uranium – To Die For – (HaZman Hatzahov)” by Shany Haziza from Israel about the most dangerous black market of radioactive uranium from the Congo. And “Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project” by Adam Jonas Horowitz: A documentary about nuclear bomb tests in the Marshall Islands.
14.01.2013
The documentary Gasland released in 2010, which portrayed the devastating effects of a method of drilling into shale gas formations called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, in rural american communities, garnered mostly positive reviews from film critics and newspapers but also negative responses by fracking lobbyists. The latter resulted in the launch of a website called Energy in Depth and the production of a movie titled TruthLand, by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, concerned with listing false information propagated in Gasland and showing a different view on fracking.
The new film Promised Land, released in December 2012, directed by Gus van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk) starring Matt Damon, John Krasinski and Frances McDormand, is the first Hollywood treatment of fracking, much to the displeasure of the oil and gas industry which have yet again launched an almost targeted campaign to discredit the movie even before its release, including buying onscreen ad time in theatres and planning to launch a “Truth Squad” initiative on social media platforms.
The film is set to have its international premiere at the 63th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2013.
For more information on Promised Land and the surrounding discussion:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/17/fracking-lobbyists-matt-damon-promised-land
20.12.2012
After taking place twice in Brazil, the International Uranium Film Festival came to Berlin in October 2012. The highlight of the festival was the screening of four movies about the nuclear disaster of Goiânia, 1987, one of them Cesium 137: The Nightmare of Goiânia (1990), a movie by already deceased Roberto Pires which had already won several awards at the 1990 Brasilia Film Festival. The present Brazilian directors Jorge Luiz Eduardo and Angelo Lima as well as producer Laura Pires took this opportunity to speak up against the Brazilian government and lacking response to the disaster.
The International Uranium Film Festival is the only film festival in the world dedicated to films about the whole nuclear fuel chain and radioactivity, from atomic bombs to Fukushima. The show in Berlin, 04-12 October, showcased more than 60 films. Besides the Brazilian, many other directors from other countries were also present and took part in an active discussion with the public. The Yellow Oscar, an award for the best and most important productions, went to Swedish film director Marko Kattilakoski and his crew for the short film Fikapaus (Coffeebreak).
The International Uranium Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro will travel to seven Indian cities in January and February 2013. Documentary film maker from India Shri Prakash is organizing the festival in New Delhi, Shillong, Ranchi, Pune, Mumbai, Hydarabad and Chennai. It will start January the 4th in the Siri Fort Auditorium of Delhi.
The festival will also be a part of the Vibgyor international Film Festival (7th to 12th February, 2013) in Kerala, under its theme of ‘Stolen Democracies’.
The International Uranium Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro accepts short and feature length films and videos in the following categories: narrative, documentary, experimental, animation for the competitions.
Deadline for the Film Entry: January 31, 2013.
15.11.2012
Celebrate Soil Awareness!As part of the first Global Soil Week, the film festival Grounded will take place at Kino Arsenal in Berlin on the 18th and the 21st November.
On two days, a selection of international films on the topic of soil and soil protection will be shown. Ten directors present the diversity and complexity of soils and their significance for human culture. Problems of industrial agricultural policy and global soil management are presented as key factors of a sustainable future. A special highlight is the premiere of Deborah Garcia Koons´ Symphony of Soil.
The films are in English or with English Subtitles.
A detailed program of the festival is available here: http://www.globalsoilweek.org/film-festival/
A selection of trailers is presented here: http://soilarts.wordpress.com/category/soil-cinemathek
30.10.2012
Picture taken from the Kickstarter Page
The Yes Men, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano, known for their satirical interventions at business events, on the internet, television, and in the streets, and famous for their award-winning documentaries “The Yes Men”(2004) and “The Yes Men Fix the World”(2009) are in the process of directing a new movie “The Yes Men Are Revolting” to complete the trilogy.
In an effort to mobilize viewers, they are also developing an “Action Switchboard”, a human-staffed platform that will inform the public about movement-building projects and issues.
They are currently raising funds for both projects on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter:
When our first movie came out, studios and television networks were paying pretty well—but then the the market for indie films went into freefall.
Today, we’re really in a pinch. Corporate sponsorship, of course, is right out. (Duh.) So we’re turning to you. The money we raise will go towards paying for a few more shoots and a couple more actions around the globe. We also need money to pay for editors, equipment, archival footage, legal counsel, and all the technical work it takes to get a movie finished and into the world. Finally, we’ll need funds for “outreach,” mainly the creation and staffing of the Action Switchboard, a way to plug inspired viewers into ongoing projects and help generate new ones. It’ll come out at the same time as the film.
The rewards for pledging range from the new activist handbook “Beautiful Trouble” to the unique Halliburton Survivaball.
For more Information on the project and the Kickstarter campaign, click here.
06.09.2012
Water, Water Everywhere, a traveling media exhibition about diverse water issues, is being shown from August 1st to December 31st at Los Gatos Art Museum in the US (click here for details) and will be next at Upez African Humanitarian Development Project, Lagos, Nigeria (October 27 & 28).
More information on the exhibition website
03.09.2012
Leviathan, a documentary film about fishing ships in the Northern Atlantic, by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, won the international critics’ prize at the Locarno Film Festival. I could see it, thanks to Mark Peranson and Bettina Steinbrügge, and indeed, I pass you on the recommendation to go and see this work, which achieves “an immersive cinematic experience [...] with small, waterproof digital cameras that were variously tethered to the fishermen, tossed in with their dead or dying catch and plunged into the roiling ocean” as described in a New York Times article (click here to read).
Castaing-Taylor’s approach to filming, which is inspired by life’s unpredictability, is also at the core of the “Sensory Ethnography Lab” at Harvard University, which “supports innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography that deploy original media practices to explore the bodily praxis and affective fabric of human and animal existence, and the aesthetics and ontology of the natural world. Harnessing perspectives drawn from the arts, the human sciences, and the humanities, works produced in the SEL encourage attention to the many dimensions of life and the world that may only with difficulty be rendered with words alone.” Click here to visit the Lab’s website
28.07.2012
Video Vortex #9, Re:assemblies of Video, is conceived and hosted by the Moving Image Lab and Post-Media Lab of the Innovation Incubator at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany. The conference will be held from February 28 until March 2, 2013. The call for contribution is open until 31 August 2012.
Online video vortices such as Youtube, are assemblages of assemblages: its infrastructure and spheres of use and production again consist of assemblages. The video sphere today is a mesh of different types of elements; we have databases, screens, interfaces, protocols and server farms. Comments, tags, lists and channels, cameras, producers, frames, users and audiences. Last, but not least, money flows, broadcasters, advertisers, property rights, eyeballs and statistics, all add to, and operate in multiple assemblages.
Currently there are new configurations of components in video culture, interacting in new ways and with loose forms of influence. VideoVortex #9 proposes that now is a time to re-engage with a structural and contextual analysis of online video culture.
07.07.2012
The film is a collaboration between Bolivian animators and the Animation Workshop of Denmark. The Abuela Grillo character is based on a myth from the Bolivian lowlands, but the film tells the story of a historic moment in Bolivian water politics.
Water issues reached a boiling point in 2000 after water privatization legislation led to a significant spike in prices for Bolivian citizens. Demonstrations rocked Cochabamba in what is also known as the Cochabamba Water Wars. Though they began as peaceful protests, demonstrations quickly grew violent, leading to dozens of civilian and police injuries and casualties. Then President Hugo Banzer was forced to resign.
This animated film takes you on journey with Abuela Grillo (Grandmother Grasshopper), who walks through rural and urban landscapes with a raincloud constantly looming over her shoulder. She encounters various obstacles as the film weaves a sad – and deeply symbolic – tale of environmental exploitation and government corruption.
Reposted from the Center for Latin American and Caribean Studies at NYU blog.
29.06.2012
Right in time Ai Weiwei´s house arrest is being lifted: The documentation Ai Weiwei: Never sorry hits screens these days. For three years the producer Alison Klayman shadowed his life, resuming in an film portrait of one of the most compelling public figures in China. Now everybody gets the chance to gaze at the life of the known conceptual artist.
The film isn’t a media unknown to the artist: Ai Weiwei uses social media and finds a great platform for political activism in the Internet. Artist and regime critic, Ai Weiwei unites these positions. Trough art he communicates and expresses himself, creatively and radically he deals with his China. In his political-artistic driven activism the dissident tries to make grievance obvious and fight injustice. He aims at a world, free of human rights abuse.
Ai Weiwei works with pictures and let’s them talk. The outcome is volitional, but due to his behavor the artist and his family are affected by reprisals on a regular basis. Last year he was detained for a few months and has spendt his days since in house arrest in Peking.
Last year a panel discussion on Ai Weiwei’s role in art and activism was held at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany (co-organized by Cultura21 and the FIDH).
28.06.2012
ARTPORT_making waves presents the 19 finalists and the winner of the third edition of animation and short videos about climate change, COOL STORIES FOR WHEN THE PLANET GETS HOT III followed by a panel “The contemporary artist and social responsibility” and introduced by the performance “Fighting Nature” by Italian artist Andrea Bianconi.
22.06.2012
The Uranium Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro is a global event with satellite festivals in other cities and countries. The Uranium Film Festival is a project of the Yellow Archives.
The goal of this Film Festival is to inform global societies about the nuclear fuel chain, the dangers of radioactivity, and the environmental and health risks of uranium exploration, mining, processing and also about nuclear waste. The festival stimulates the production of independent documentaries, movies and animated films about nuclear issues.
The Yellow Archives, the presenting organization of the Uranium Film Festival, is a cultural and educational organization and it is the first-ever film library in Brazil and Latin America dedicated to films about the whole nuclear fuel chain and radioactivity. The Yellow Archives hopes to increase public information about the nuclear power, about nuclear waste, uranium mining and radioactivity in general. Schools, universities, non-profit institutions will have access to the Yellow Archives. The films shall be used only for non-profit, educational and research purposes.
For more information about the Festival, the Films and schedules, please visit http://www.uraniofestival.org
15.06.2012
Good Pitch is an innovative model bringing together the skills of documentary filmmakers with NGOs, foundations, social entrepreneurs, brands, governments and media around leading social issues to expand the resources aimed at maximising the impact of social-issue documentary.
Good Pitch Europe will be held on 25th of June at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London, UK. Eight filmmaking teams pitch their film and its associated outreach campaign to the assembled audience with the aim of creating a unique coalition and campaign around each film in order to accelerate its impact and influence and form alliances.
The final pitch is immediately followed by a Networking drinks event where nearly 100 filmmakers and around 300 participants can exchange ideas and contacts with broad discussion encouraged around the issues and challenges involved.
03.02.2012
by Isao Hashimoto
A beautiful but undeniably scary timelapse-map of nuclear explosions by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto can be seen in the following video. It shows with sound and numbers the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998.
Hashimoto started the project in 2003 in order to show “the fear and folly of nuclear weapons.”
Isao HASHIMOTO studied at Department of Arts, Policy and Management of Musashino Art University, Tokyo and is currently working for the Lalique Museum as a curator.
For more information about the artist see http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/
This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License
