(en) The National Geographic Channel looks 200 years into the future in Collapse, based on author Jared Diamond's book Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, to examine how current habits might affect humans' ability to survive. Directed by Noel Dockstader and narrated by Jamie Effros, this documentary examines how relationships among current methods could lead to human extinction. Shortages of land, water, and energy could potentially propel civilization to collapse choices such as sustainable, local farming and organic practices are highlighted as ways to ensure life on Earth continues.
(en) Sweet Crude is the story of Nigeria’s Niger Delta – a story that’s never been captured in a feature-length film.
Beginning with the filmmaker’s initial trip to document the building of a library in a remote village, Sweet Crude is a journey of multilayered revelation and ever-deepening questions. It’s about survival, corruption, greed and armed resistance. It’s about one place in one moment, with themes that echo many places throughout history. Sweet Crude shows the humanity behind the statistics, events and highly sensationalized media portrayal of the region. Set against a stunning backdrop of Niger Delta footage, the film gives voice to the region’s complex mix of stakeholders and invites the audience to learn the deeper story.
The issues are local and human, yet they have far-reaching political, environmental and economic implications. It’s a powder-keg situation that affects the daily lives and futures of the people who live there. Left unchecked, its consequences will be felt around the globe. Yet barely anyone outside the Delta knows what’s really happening.
Why do we care enough to make this movie? Because raising awareness just might be the tipping point it takes to head off civil war. Because the kids of the Delta deserve a future. Because what happens in Nigeria ripples through African political stability and global economic markets. Because Nigeria produces more than 10 percent of the U.S. oil supply. Ultimately, the events unfolding in the Niger Delta affect us all.
It will take a vigilant world community to advocate for nonviolent political solutions. With this independent documentary, we take a stand for a more truthful conversation, with the hope that a more educated public will hold governments and big oil accountable to peaceful and just resolution.
(sk) Sweet Crude je dokumentárny film o Delte Nigeru v Nigérii a o humanitárnej a ekologickej devastácii v dôsledku 50 rokov neregulovanej ťažby ropy. Je to film o histórii nenásilného protestu domorodých obyvateľov, ktorí požadujú kontrolu nad svojimi vlastnými zdrojmi, a o vzniku organizácie "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)".
(en) Moving between a local microcosm and the global oil crisis, H2Oil weaves together a collection of compelling stories of people who are at the front lines of the biggest industrial project in human history: Canada's tar sands. H2Oil is a feature-length documentary that traces the wavering balance between the urgent need to protect and preserve fresh water resources and the mad clamoring to fill the global demand for oil. It is a film that asks: what is more important, water or oil? Will the quest for profit overshadow efforts to protect public health and the environment in Canada's richest province?
(en) Deep behind-the-scenes into the strip-mined world of Alberta, Canada, where the vast and toxic Tar Sands deposit supplies the U.S. with the majority of its oil. Through the eyes of scientists, ‘big oil’ officials, politicians, doctors, environmentalists, and aboriginal citizens directly impacted by ‘the largest industrial project on the planet today,’ the filmmakers journey to both sides of the border to see the emotional and irreversible toll this ‘black gold rush’ fueled by America’s addiction to oil is taking on our planet
(en) Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new president will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst?
Meet Michael Ruppert, a different kind of American. A former Lost Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current finacial crisis in his self-published newsletter. From the Wilderness, at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. Director Chris Smith has shown an affinity for outsiders in films like American Movie and The Yes Men. In Collapse, he departs stylistically from his past documentaries by interviewing Ruppert in a format that recalls the work of Errol Morris and Spalding Gray.
Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate about the issue of "peak oil," the concern raised by scientists since the seventies that the world will eventually run out of fossil fuel. While other experts debate this issue in measured tones, Rupperts doesn't hold back at sounding an alarm, portraying an apocalyptic future. Listening to his rapid flow of opinions, the viewer is likely to question some of the rhetoric as paranoid or deluded, and to sway back and forth on what to make of the extremism. Smith lets viewers form their own judgments.
Collapse also serve as a portrait of a loner. Over the years, Ruppert has stood up for what he believes in despite fierce opposition. He candidly describes the sacrifices and motivators in his life. While other observers analyze details of the economic crisis, Ruppert views it as symptomatic of nothing less than the collapse of industrial civilization itself.
(cz) Monolog byvaleho policisty, novinare a spisovatele Michaela C. Rupperta - muze, ktery tvrdi, ze jeho varovani nejsou konspiracni teorie, ale konspiracni fakta. Blizi se opravdu velky neodvratny energeticky a ekonomicky kolaps nasi civilizace, nebo jsou to jenom prehnane paranoidni predstavy? Kolaps je natoceny pomerne minimalisticky a stylem pripomina napriklad filmy Errola Morrise ( www.csfd.cz/herec/8727-morris-errol/ ). Coz mu ale na pusobivosti neubira, ba naopak. Znepokojivy a zhavy kandidat na nominaci na Oskara za rok 2009.
(en) Our World investigates why a small band of Cree Indians in Canada's Alberta Tar Sands are taking on the world's oil companies, and being bankrolled by a high-street business in the UK.
The UK’s Co-Operative Financial Services is assisting Canada’s Beaver Lake Cree Nation in pursuing legal action to stop the development of tar sands in Alberta.
The Cree nation has constitutionally protected rights to the land, and is seeking an injunction against the developments to preserve the area’s ecological integrity, an action which could affect companies including BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Total.
(sk) BBC vyšetruje prečo malý kmeň indiánov Cree žijúcich v blízkosti dechtových pieskov (tar sands) v kanadskej Alberte sa stavajú proti veľkým ropných korporáciám a sú finančne podporovaní jednou britskou firmou.
(en) The Canadian Tar Sands is the world's largest, and dirtiest, energy project. Dirty oil sands crude generates as much as five times greenhouse gas as conventional oil. Yet, unless steps are taken by the U.S. and Canada, both countries will become irrevocably addicted to the dirtiest oil on earth. Totally lame.
(en) Blind Spot is a documentary film that illustrates the current oil and energy crisis that our world is facing. Whatever measures of ignorance, greed, wishful thinking, we have put ourselves at a crossroad, which offers two paths with dire consequences. If we continue to burn fossil fuels we will choke the life out of the planet and if we don't our way of life will collapse.
In this haunting portrait of America's oil-fueled excesses, director Adolfo Doring explores the inextricable link between the energy we use, the way we run our economy, and the multiplying threats that now confront the environmental health and stability of our planet. Taking as its starting point the inevitable energy depletion scenario known as "Peak Oil," the film surveys a fascinating range of the latest intellectual, political, and scientific thought to make the case that by whatever measure of greed, wishful thinking, neglect, or ignorance, we now find ourselves at a disturbing crossroads: we can continue to burn fossil fuels and witness the collapse of our ecology, or we can choose not to and witness the collapse of our economy. Refusing to whitewash this reality, Blind Spot issues a call to action, urging us to face up to the perilous situation we now find ourselves in so that we might begin to envision a realistic, if inconvenient, way out. Certain to inspire debate in classrooms across a range of disciplines, especially in economics, environmental studies, the natural sciences, and political science.
(sk) "Slepý bod" je dokumentárny film zobrazujúci súčasnú ropnú a energetickú krízu, ktorej čelí dnešný svet. Napriek celej miere ignorácie, nenásitnosti a nesplniteľných želaní, dostali sme sa na križovatku, ktorá nám poskytuje dve možné cesty so strašnými následkami. Ak budeme naďalej spaľovať fosílne palivá, ukradneme život z tejto planéty a ak nebudeme, náš spôsob života stroskotá.
