This Wednesday sees the start of a programme of environmentally themed films courtesy of the Institute for a Sustainable World at Queen's University Belfast. Screening each week between now and December in the Seminar Room, 63 University Road, the selection includes a mix of high profile documentaries and local productions. It also includes A Sense of Wonder (26th October), a look at the life and work of Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring and pioneer of the environmentalist movement.
For more information, contact Dr John Barry j.barry@qub.ac.uk, full programme details below.
5th October (from 6.30pm): The Powerdown Show: The Powerdown Show is a 10-part TV series that takes a fresh and engaging look at the community responses to the converging challenges of climate change and peak oil.
12th October: The Yes Men Fix the World: A screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world's most outrageous pranks
19th October: Fierce Light: When Spirit meets Action: Acclaimed filmmaker Velcrow Ripper sets out to discover the power that is released when spirituality and activism meet. Sparked by what Gandhi called “soul force” and Martin Luther King called “love in action,” Ripper spotlights remarkable individuals who are taking action from the heart.
26th October: A Sense of Wonder: When pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, the backlash from her critics thrust her into the centre of a political maelstrom. Despite her love of privacy, Carson's convictions and her foresight regarding the risks posed by chemical pesticides forced her into a very public and controversial role. Struggling with cancer, Carson recounts with both humor and anger the attacks by the chemical industry, the government, and the press as she focuses her limited energy to get her message to Congress and the American people.
2nd November: The Pipe: A compelling documentary film four years in the making, The Pipe tells the story of the small Rossport community which has taken on the might of Shell Oil and the Irish State. The discovery of gas off this remote coastal village has led to the most dramatic clash of cultures in modern Ireland.The Pipe is a story of a community tragically divided, and the prospect of a pipeline that can bring economic prosperity or destroy of a way of life shared for generations.
9th November: The Corporation: An epic in length and breadth, this documentary aims at nothing less than a full-scale portrait of the most dominant institution on the planet Earth in our lifetime--a phenomenon all the more remarkable, if not downright frightening, when you consider that the corporation as we know it has been around for only about 150 years. The movie performs a running psychoanalysis of this entity with the characteristics of a prototypical psychopath: a callous unconcern for the feelings and safety of others, an incapacity to experience guilt, an ingrained habit of lying for profit, etc.
16th November: Capitalism: A Love Story: Michael Moore's didactic documentary style is actually a source of inspiration in Capitalism: A Love Story. This film, which explores the history of incongruence between American capitalism and democracy. Here Moore employs his trademark tactics to make a satirical documentary that functions as a film-based, grassroots political strategy meant to provoke revolt.
23rd November: Inside Job: This priceless documentary presents a devastating expose of the staggering Wall Street swindle that caused the economic meltdown of 2008.
30th November: Supersize Me: Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, rejected five times by the USC film school, won the best director award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival for this alarmingly personal investigation into the health hazards wreaked by our fast food nation. Under extensive medical supervision, Spurlock subjects himself to a steady diet of McDonald's cuisine for 30 days just to see what happens. In less than a week, his ordinarily fit body and equilibrium undergo dark and ugly changes.
7th December: Century of the Self: The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?
14th December: What would Jesus Buy?: Follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt! Through retail interventions, corporate exorcisms, and some good old-fashioned preaching, Reverend Billy reminds us that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas.
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