A number of films at this year’s Durban International Film Festival will highlight the need for integrated approaches to development, and the threats to human ecology and environmental balance.
Scientists Under Attack is an important exposure of the influence of big corporates in the active suppression of information regarding the shift in global food production.
Carlos Franciso’s American Foulbrood looks at the crippling effects of a deadly disease on African honey bees and its possible impact on food production in South Africa.
The entertaining Sundance Jury Prize Winner Gasland explores the shocking consequences of massive natural gas drilling across the USA. Koundi and the National Thursday is an intimate look at life inside a small village in the forests of Cameroon and how this communal society is negotiating the demands of globalization and the search for uniquely African solutions.
Questions about urban development are raised in The Battle for Johannesburg and When The Mountain Meets Its Shadow. The feature film Altiplano is set againstmercury poisoning of a community from a local factory.
There are two films which emphasise positive developments. The multi-award winning Waste Land reveals the creative production that results when art and poverty collide at the world’s largest rubbish dump in Brazil. The 4th Revolution: Energy Autonomy systematically and engagingly outlines the tantalising possibility of switching to 100% renewable energy sources in the next 30 years.
The Durban International Film Festival, which is principally funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF), takes place from 22 July to 1 August. See www.cca.ukzn.ac.za for more information.
