Festivals BIFED Bozcaada International Festival of Ecological Documentary, 9-13. X 2019
To benefit society, not capitalism
Travelling on the beautiful and long road from Istanbul to the island of Bozcaada implies passing by the historical place Canakkale (or Dardanelles, as it was known), renowned, for hosting early settlers of many civilisations, for its proximity to the ancient site of Troy and, among many other things, for its famous World War I battle, from where we were to take the last ferry to our final destination. The excitement of history galore does not subdue when we reach Bozcaada, or Tenedos, as it used to be referred to in the antiquity, situated in the northeastern part of the Aegean sea, described in Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid; supposedly, it was from this island that the Trojan horse was dispatched to trick the Trojans. Upon arrival at Bozcaada/Tenedos, the excitement reaches its peak, as this small ecological island opens its full magnificent paysage view, welcoming guests for its 6th edition of BIFED. Faced with beautiful colours of Bozcaada and tough choices what to see first, we are even more challenged by the festival’s programme visual choices, trying to decide on (apart from our jury’s obligatory film selection) highly-packed film slots.
Organised for the sixth year by the dedicated duo Petra Holzer and Ethem Ozgüven, the rich and varied festival programme includes the following segments: International competition, GAIA student section, non-competitive Panorama screening 30 best documentary films of the last two years, Special screenings, several workshops, Children’s programme and children’s films, exhibitions on: “In search of sustainable morphologies in Bozcaada”, “Portraits and images from Bozcaada”, an impressive masterclass of Italian filmmaking duo Alberto Vendemmiati and Fabrizio Lazzaretti, including the screenings of their films: Afghanistan: collateral damages, and Jung - in the land of the Mujaheddin.
BIFED’s 6th edition showcased a variety of long and short films that impactfully address the slavery of the 21st century, worse than the slavery of the past centuries, flourishing under European imperialists, still ongoing. Such films convey the fight against the exploitation of nature, subject to unprecedented cruelty and destruction, and ruthless consumerism, thriving under the banner of ‘market liberalism’. There is one reason for this, as Ethem Ozguven, Festival Coordinator, states: “No one hears the sobbing of the trees and the crying of the fish. Each night, unspeakable crimes are committed in oceans. It is the fishing ships of USA, China, and the UN that commit those crimes. The world does not come to an end, instead it turns into a planet in which human life is becoming continually cheaper with all the values, and even children do not have hope, in which the mass suicide of species is normalized”. Paradoxically, such liberalism (with ensuing privatisation of energy sources) creates not only more pollution, but also generates enormous poverty, unprecedented in the century of ‘abundance’: while the planet is becoming globally warmer, millions of people are colder, with thousands of them dying from not being able to stay warm in the richest countries of Western Europe each year.
In other words, at BIFED we discover the films about centuries-long exploitation of nature and humans, and all those phenomena we choose to ignore, the things that are destructive to the Planet and to us, but also those subtle actions, movements and activities the mainstream culture wouldn’t choose to spoon-feed us, as it’s not profitable or consumer-conducive. In the words of Petra Holzer, Festival Director: “We do not know the oil pollution in Ecuador, the forest massacre in Papua New Guinea, the danger awaiting the Strandja Forests, the bitter fate of the Karun River in Iran and the Colorado River in the US. We do not know the great environmental rebellion of young people, the world-wide gold mine frenzy and the brave people who oppose it, and the oceans, rivers and cities drowned in trash”.
International competition included:
The opening film The Undamaged (Matic Oblak, Rožle Bregar & Miha Avgustin, Slovenia, Turkish premiere, TP) focuses on wild rivers of the Balkan Peninsula, which cradles Europes’s last wild rivers, with abundant wildlife and healthy and intact ecosystems. The film follows the Balkans River Tour, a crew of whitewater kayakers, photographers and friends who decided to oppose directly the construction of 2,700 small and large hydropower plants planned in the Balkans, not shying away from exposing blatant political corruption and greed of the Balkans (and foreign) leaders.
The film River (Cristian Tapies Goldenberg, Argentina/Chile/Spain, TP) is another touching film on the riches of rivers, this time of the largest hydrographic network on the planet, the vast Amazon region. The film is a testimony to human geography of encounters, historical dialogues and a powerful natural beauty threatened by human consumption, ignorance, and devastating impulses of greed and corruption, directly threatening the Indian tribe of Waorani.
Time thieves (Cosima Dannoritzer, Spain/France, TP), a dynamic, information-packed film, is a profound and striking socio-philosophical study on how companies monetize our time without our knowledge and how the social networks have, in their own words, become ‘the new clockmakers’. This documentary explores, in intricate sociological and historical ways, how time has become money, how our professional and personal lives are controlled by capitalist machinery, which contradicts some of the basic human rights – to freedom and to ownership of time.
Mountains of water-Strandja (Racia Adar, Turkey) is dedicated to the memory of Aysin and Ali Büyünohotçu, who were murdered because of their struggle against the quarries. The film is a harrowing account on the people’s struggle for Strandja Mountains, underground waters and trees, protected by the local people, who are helpless in the face of big corporations/murderers (the film shows evidence of this), but hopeful of their fight against the destruction of nature.
Dying for gold (Catherine Meyburgh & Richard Pakleppa, South Africa/Lesotho/ Eswatini/Mozambique, TP) is a devastating documentary, exploring the ways in which the mining industry was a key force in shaping South Africa, described as “the untold story of making of South-Africa”. With a rich and convincing archival footage, combined with harrowing and touchingly real gold-miners’ interviews, whose lives were destroyed by silicosis and tuberculosis, the film shows how Southern Africa’s indigenous societies were destroyed so as to have a pool of cheap surplus labour, that mined some of the world’s richest deposits of gold for the sole purpose of profit. By showing the vestiges of the colonial and apartheid eras, the film efficiently conveys the feeling that both colonialism and apartheid prevail still today.
Andrés Carrasco – Disruptive Science (Valeria Tucci, Argentine) is a stunning documentary, combining archival footage, present-day interviews and narration to pay homage to Andrés Carrasco, a world-renowned Argentine scientist, who gave up academic career and life of comfort (he was invited and recruited by many world-renowned Universities and Academic hubs) in order to disclose the harmful effects of pesticides on human health. He challenged the scientific system subsidised by the State and agro-chemical companies, was hounded and defamed by the press, but respected and admired by people who die fumigated with glyphosate. Remaining loyal to his scientific honesty and ethical principles, Carrasco states, in one of the interviews: what is needed is “to redefine paradigms, methodologies, questions and answers - to benefit society, not capitalism”, making a powerful statement against multinationals’ profit and advocating the cause for the victims of multinational giants. By adhering to Carrasco’s principles and dedication, the film does precisely this: it benefits the society and preserves the legacy of Carrasco’s scientific work and social activism.
Take light ( Shasha Nakhai, Canada, TP) is a touching portrayal of Nigeria’s energy crisis (Africa’s biggest oil producer), zooming in on the oil-refining hub Port Harcourt, whose citizens, in an urgent documentary call, offer a harsh reality-check through their dramatic and compelling stories, unaccounted for by media pundits and politicians.
Youth unstoppable (Slater Jewell-Kemker, Canada, USA, Japan/Brazil/Mexico, Denmark/France/Poland/Nepal) documents the struggles of the youth in order to be heard within the frustrating process of UN Climate Change negotiations, giving the voice precisely to whom the Planet will belong in the near future.
Soyalism (Stefano Liberti & Enrico Parenti, Brazil/China/Mozambique/USA) follows the industrial production chain of pork and the related soybean monoculture from China to Brazil through the United States, describing the monopole of power of Chinese and, primarily, Western companies.
Fair traders (Nino Jacusso, Switzerland, TP) charts the careers of three successful entrepreneurs, who engage in sustainable products and take an ethical responsibility in the free market, for their own actions and future generations.
Spears of all sides, directed by Christopher Walker (USA/Ecuador, TP) – this year’s winner of the 3rd jury prize – is a gripping detailed account on the battles of Ecuador’s Waorani tribe to defend their Amazon rainforest (which they have defended with spears since the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores) and also on their fight for self-preservation, as their own lives are threatened. Since USA missionaries cleared the way for oil companies’ arrival on the Waorani’s lands in the 1950’s, now 70% of Ecuador’s Amazon, home to about 12 tribes and to the most biodiverse rainforests of the planet, has been polluted by oil blocks. Only the Waorani have been able to successfully keep oil companies off most of their land. Now when Ecuador has started to auction off the Waorani’s last virgin rainforests to the oil industry, including the Yasuni National Park, which contains more species than anywhere else in the world, this film documents the events as they unfold, including some rare footage and the touching depiction of the Waorani’s battles against the colonising invader.
Breathless, directed by Daniel Lambo (Belgium, TP) – the jury’s 1st prize winner – is a personal film project, which the author undertakes following the deaths of his father, his mother, family members and many others from his village in Belgium. Lambo is determined to find the truth about the deadly asbestos industry. The crucial moment in the film is when Lambo discovers that his father, who was employed by the asbestos industry itself, knew about the damaging effects of asbestos (of which he himself is the victim), but kept silent “in order to keep the job”. By contrast to the above mentioned film Andres Carrasco – Disruptive silence, in which the son pays homage to his father’s bold and revolutionary scientific and activist achievements, striving to keep his legacy alive, in this film, Lambo is pushed by circumstances to the action of settling the accounts with his father’s past of passivity and sets off on a revindication journey of truth, trying to make up for his father’s inactions. This sincere and adventurous quest takes him to the largest asbestos waste dump in India, which still endangers the lives of workers and consumers around the world. By unveiling the cold-blooded profit-oriented postulates of asbestos industry, the film, also, reveals the multi- organised global machinery of service industries, such as mainstream media (even national public broadcasters), hired/employed to help keep global silence about the deadly damage of this industry. This narrative unpredictability, which oscillates, in the best documentarist possible ways, between personal dilemmas and hesitations and universal social benefits, turns this sincere personal project into a serious and ambitious venture, elevating it from an initial personal battle to an unprecedented level of a global battle we should all fight, not forgetting to ask pertinent questions about our fathers’ legacy
Ovacik, an amazing film directed by Aysegul Selenga Taskent (Turkey, WP) on an extraordinary character, mayor of Ovacik and its dedicated community, screened at BIFED as a world premiere and is the jury’s 2nd prize winner. Fatih Mehmet Macoglu is the first mayor ever in Turkey elected by the Turkish Communist Party, as the mayor of Ovacik, a small Kurdish-Alevi town in the heart of Eastern Turkey, a place where cultural and humanistic values dominate to the benefit of all and not the few.
The geographer and the island, directed by Christine Bouteiller (France, TP) – the jury special mention - focuses on geographer Philippe Pelletier’s journey to the Japanese island Iwaishima, home to the inhabitants’ anti-nuclear struggle and an environmental and societal think-tank.
BIFED could not have been set in a more suitable venue for its ecological documentary programme than this beautiful ecological island of Bozcaada, with its colourful entourage of sunlit flowery gardens, clear blue sea set against small blue and white houses, heavenly tasting organic fruits and vegetables, marmelades and mezes, completely in tune with amazing festival cinema venues, especially the small yellow Salhane cinema in the rocks on the marina, with the festival’s bold, and impactful films, with the ambiance of abundant talks with festival guests, advocating human solidarity and resistance to the planet evil-doers, kindness of volunteers, all seasoned with exquisite fruity wines and rakis, and, especially, with an infinite generosity of islanders, always ready to open their home doors, open their minds to new film and planet-saving discussions, and, not least, curious about one’s background. As I come from a tiny country (that rarely anybody knows about, let alone has heard of its existence), I had never experienced such a vivacious interest from the festival guests and islanders alike, who have actually visited Montenegro or who voiced an interest in visiting it. Before Bozcaada, I had thought Montenegro was a an abstract, metaphorical tiny isolated “island” on the map of Europe, that nobody knew about (except the most commercial tourists and most hip world investors), but there, on a proper physical island, I met people, who are genuinely interested in discovering remote parts of the planet and they cared. And I am certain they will continue to care, as they care about the whole planet.
Maja Bogojević
Awards
Jury: Ceylan O. Ozcelik (Turkey), Dr. Naci Guchan (Turkey), Dimitris Koutsiabasakos (Greece), Julia Lazarus (Germany) and Maja Bogojevic (Montenegro)
The first Award Fehti Kayaalp Grand Award (Turkish artist, painter, renowned restorer of paintings and dedicated ecological activist, even at 96) – to Breathless
“For an authentic and convincing story on how the life of human being is affected by multinational companies. It combines the personal story with a global tragedy.”
The second award – to Ovacik
“For a touching story of human solidarity and hope. The film introduces us to the town mayor who transforms and redefines political paradigms, methodologies, questions and answers in order to benefit all in the society.”
The third award to - Spears from all sides!
“For its powerful depiction of the intrinsic relationship between nature and human beings. It focuses on the voice of the threatened indigenous people and combines masterfully archival footage with the striking testimony of an ongoing devastation”.
Special mention to The geographer and the island
“For a poetic and moving story on an island-which could be Bozcaada- made alive by dedicated human beings, resisting destructive impulses.”
GAIA Award to: ‘Rising of the Setting Sun’ by Julie Hössle (Italy, WP).
