Review by Ben Courtice

More than 20 films and shorts were screened during the four sessions of the Wild Spaces Film Festival in Hobart on February 15 and 16.

The films varied in theme and style, covering environmental issues from Canada to Nigeria to Britain and Australia. Those that I saw tended to fall into one of two categories: those depicting the environment, such as Tarkiner Paner, an introduction to the Tarkine, and those focused on campaigns to save the environment, for example You've Got To Be Choking Too, about the "No M11 Link Road" campaign in London.

Other films examined Aboriginal culture, and there was a sequence dedicated to the famous wilderness photographers and campaigners, Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis. There were, of course, some classics including The Last Wild River and Gordon Splits, both about the Gordon/Franklin region in Tasmania's south-west.

There were some really great flicks about environmental campaigning. The highlight was Kanehsatake: 270 Years Of Resistance, a tense documentary filmed in 1990. It traces the 78-day siege by the Canadian police and army against the Kanehsatake Mohawk people who blockaded a road and occupied, with arms, their traditional territory to prevent a golf course being built on it. The film was not particularly instructive but it was inspiring to see such courage and strength in the face of brutal armed forces and saddening defeat. It is record of state racism and repression of indigenous people.

A short but very fun film was Global News. To bouncy, up-beat techno music, it portrayed many different environmental (and other) actions around the world -- including a 3000-person hop against neo-nazis in Sweden!

There were also films about the campaign against the destruction of Tasmania's Tarkine wilderness; a humorous film about the World Bank, IMF and GATT called Washes Whiter; and Shell on Earth, about the physical, social and environmental brutalities committed against the Ogoni people of Nigeria by Shell oil company.

The final film, Rocking the Foundations, is a classic documentary about the Australian Builders Labourers Federation and their interactions with the environment movement. Having already seen it five times, seeing it again was still educational and inspiring.

Look out for a Wild Spaces Film Festival near you soon.

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.
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