Green Issues Films

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I finally got around to organising a regular radical film screening but it's not just me organising it but a small group of us. The people I'm organising it with are Green Party types who want to show documentaries about green issues but I want to show more radical working class films exploring more about capitalism as a system etc. I've got plenty of those films (stuff like The Take) but I was hoping to have some suggestions of more radical eco-socialist stuff that I could more easily convince my erstwhile collaborators to screen.

Does anyone have any suggestions for good films exploring the environment, climate change and those sorts of issues from a revolutionary viewpoint?

[consuming negativity]

I recently watched "Earthlings" and cried about five times during it, if you can actually convince people to watch some shit like that (graphic scenes of animal torture/factories/etc.) It isn't really "radical eco-socialist" as much as you'll go "holy fucking shit all of these people are awful and should die horrible deaths" and think the "radical eco-socialists" are coming from a valid standpoint.

Other than that, I have interest in seeing the other contributions to this thread.

[Sixiang]

Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime) is a fantastic anime film filled with environmentalist messages. It features a warlike battle between humans in a frontier industrial town and the giant animals that live in the surrounding forest. Humanity's destructive attitudes towards nature are highly criticized in the film but it also features humans who passionately defend the forest and its animals.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime) is a fantastic anime film filled with environmentalist messages. It features a warlike battle between humans in a frontier industrial town and the giant animals that live in the surrounding forest. Humanity's destructive attitudes towards nature are highly criticized in the film but it also features humans who passionately defend the forest and its animals.
Princess Mononoke is a great film but we were more thinking of screening documentaries than fiction (although the Chaplin fan in me really wants to screen Modern Times). What I'm interested in is sort of along the lines of submedia's http://stoptheflows.tumblr.com episodes documenting resistance to the tar sands projects, oil pipelines and anti-nuclear activism etc.

[Sixiang]

Princess Mononoke is a great film but we were more thinking of screening documentaries than fiction (although the Chaplin fan in me really wants to screen Modern Times). What I'm interested in is sort of along the lines of submedia's http://stoptheflows.tumblr.com episodes documenting resistance to the tar sands projects, oil pipelines and anti-nuclear activism etc.

I see. I can recommend a few documentaries myself having taken a U.S. Environmental History course with an old environmentalist activist who personally knew/knows many of the most famous environmentalist activists in the U.S.

Documentaries:
- "Libby, Montana" - a very sobering documentary about the people of a small Montana mining town who are now suffering from serious cases of lung cancer from inhaling the toxic fumes coming out of the local mine, whose owners refuse to take any responsibility for the rapid deaths of their former employees and their families.
- "Ancient Forests: Rage Over Trees" - this older documentary from 1989 is about the fight in Oregon by local activists and townspeople to keep lumber companies from destroying what little is left of the majestic old growth redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest.
- "Broken Rainbow" - tells the story of the struggle of the Navajo and Hopi American Indians of the Southwest who are now suffering on their reservations after years of laboring in the local government-contracted uranium mines used to build the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Their fight with the federal government and horribly corrupt local politicians is inspiring and very saddening.
-You can't go wrong with Ken Burns' serious on the Dust Bowl, too.
- "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" - okay this isn't really an environmentalist documentary. It's all about an eccentric plains farmer who inherited the farm from his father and has been trying to save and run it through all of the economic hardships that American farmers have experienced in the past 50 years as giant factory farms replace them.
- "The Cove" - I am sure you've seen it or at least heard of it, but I figured I should mention it.
- "Detropia" - talks a little about the urban farming movement that has sprouted up in Detroit but it's really about the daily lives of a group of Detroit residents in 2012. It's an amazingly well-done documentary.

And one dramatized film that may be of interest:
-"The Burning Season: The Chico Mendes Story" - an interesting dramatic portrayal of the life of indigenous Amazonian rubber tapper/labor organizer Chico Mendes, who led his comrades in resisting the brutal oppression of the Brazilian state and cattle ranchers seeking to burn and bulldoze the Amazon rain forest and replace it with flat ranch land.

[Sabot Cat]

Princess Mononoke is a great film but we were more thinking of screening documentaries than fiction (although the Chaplin fan in me really wants to screen Modern Times). What I'm interested in is sort of along the lines of submedia's http://stoptheflows.tumblr.com episodes documenting resistance to the tar sands projects, oil pipelines and anti-nuclear activism etc.

How about Split Estate? I haven't seen it, but from what I've gleaned it's something like what you're looking for. It's about people suffering from ill health effects because of companies fracking near their residencies. There's also a Tar Sands blockade film (http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/documentary/) and The Pipe, which documents the resistance against a Shell pipeline by Irish fishers and farmers.


Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime) is a fantastic anime film filled with environmentalist messages. It features a warlike battle between humans in a frontier industrial town and the giant animals that live in the surrounding forest. Humanity's destructive attitudes towards nature are highly criticized in the film but it also features humans who passionately defend the forest and its animals.

I was going to recommend this film too, as it is one of my favorites. I believe Hayao Miyazaki is a great artist with clear empathy for other people and admirable feminist and environmentalist views; from what I can tell, he is also opposed to imperialism and capitalism. This is pretty blatant in more of his obscure work, like Future Boy Conan which was really received in Arab nations, wherein the ultra-capitalist Industria is conflict with the protagonists' home farming commune of High Harbor.

[Sixiang]

How about Split Estate? I haven't seen it, but from what I've gleaned it's something like what you're looking for. It's about people suffering from ill health effects because of companies fracking near their residencies. There's also a Tar Sands blockade film (http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/documentary/) and The Pipe, which documents the resistance against a Shell pipeline by Irish fishers and farmers.



I was going to recommend this film too, as it is one of my favorites. I believe Hayao Miyazaki is a great artist with clear empathy for other people and admirable feminist and environmentalist views; from what I can tell, he is also opposed to imperialism and capitalism. This is pretty blatant in more of his obscure work, like Future Boy Conan which was really received in Arab nations, wherein the ultra-capitalist Industria is conflict with the protagonists' home farming commune of High Harbor.
That documentary looks very interesting. Thanks for posting that link. I'll check it out. And feel the same way about Miyazaki's films. A lot of his films feature female protagonists or at leas very strong women characters who on equal footing with the male characters. The pros and cons of modernity are presented in most of his films in a very beautiful way that empathizes the people.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I would recommend Blackfish. It's a documentary about the morality of keeping Orcas in captivity, and centers around the orca Tilikum, who has been responsible for the deaths of three different trainers (most famously Dawn Branchaeu in 2010).

[Firebrand]

I know it's fiction and you wanted documentaries, but Silent Running is definitely one that you should look into. Sometimes documentaries get so caught up in facts and figures they lose sight of the message. It's a sci fi based on the premise that all the worlds forests have been put in space and are about to be destroyed, and its really very good.