Planet of the Humans: Earth Day Clarion Call?

A Guest Review by

Dan Stormont

Spoiler alert: I am going to analyze the major points made in this latest film from documentary filmmaker Jeff Gibbs and executive producer Michael Moore. I am a firm believer that you should never take someone else's opinion over the source material, so - if you have an hour and forty-one minutes to spare (and it's still playing for free on YouTube) - I would suggest you watch the movie yourself and then return here to see what I have to say about it.

Back already? Great! Let's get started. 

To begin with, I should say that I have found Michael Moore to be an entertaining filmmaker, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he is an honest filmmaker. Michael loves the sound bite clip and the "gotcha" moments when he catches one of his victims - excuse me, interviewees - off-guard. He does have a skill at highlighting issues in a visceral, human manner that tends to make you think, laugh, or angry, but he is also continually manipulating you toward the conclusion he wants you to draw, rather than asking a question, presenting supporting evidence, and letting you draw your own conclusion. I am probably more forgiving of his style because I often agree with him, but even when I have agreed, I have been irritated by those parts of the film where I know he is being dishonest - or, at the very least, when he is oversimplifying a complex and nuanced issue. It's obvious that Jeff Gibbs has learned a great deal from his mentor.

The movie starts out with Jeff Gibbs recounting his environmental bona fides: He has been an environmentalist since he was a young boy, back when the first Earth Day was celebrated - a self-proclaimed "tree hugger." He moved into a log cabin with solar panels and a wood-burning stove and reported on environmental issues for a number of environmental magazines and papers. He even had run-ins with security guards at a number of toxic industrial plants while trying to get the inside story on their environmental practices.

Gibbs then shows a clip from a 1958 television movie, produced by Frank Capra, titled The Unchained Goddess in which "Dr. Research," played by Dr. Frank Baxter (an English professor), explains to "Mr. Fiction Writer," played by Richard Carlson (actor and director), that carbon dioxide emissions from our industrial society could cause warming of the planet, leading to the melting of the polar ice and ocean level rise that could submerge much of the southeastern United States. Gibbs points out that we have known about the potential impacts of greenhouse gasses since at least the time of that 1958 film. (Actually, we've known it since Eunice Foote first presented a scientific paper about the heat trapping properties of carbon dioxide and potential impacts on Earth's atmosphere in 1856!) He then goes on to ask a very reasonable question: If we've known about the problem for such a long time and the environmental movement has been working toward solutions since at least the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, why haven't we made more progress? A very good question! At this point, I'm ready for some good insights.

Unfortunately, Jeff Gibbs never provides those insights or answers the question. The rest of the film becomes hyper-focused on "green energy" as the silver bullet of the environmental movement. For Gibbs, environmentalists are limited by the single-minded pursuit of green energy - ignoring many other aspects of dealing with climate change and potential side effects. Contrary to Gibbs' assertion, the United Nations has identified seventeen Sustainable Development Goals that need to be achieved if we are going to create a sustainable, equitable, and just world for us all. Only one of those goals is "Affordable and Clean Energy" (SDG #7, if you were curious). In fact, only one of those goals addresses "Climate Action" (SDG 13). The modern environmental movement recognizes that dealing with the climate crisis will require addressing all aspects of economic, social, and environmental justice to be successful. For Gibbs, it's all just about energy.

We start our green energy road trip when Gibbs goes to an Earth Day festival that claims to be solar powered (at some unidentified time in the past). Everything is going great until it starts to rain. Gibbs heads backstage to find one of the electricians firing up a biodiesel generator. Oh-oh! Solar doesn't work when it's cloudy! Even worse, even the generator's not enough, so they have to flip the breakers to feed in some utility power. Yikes! Total solar fail!

I'm going to take the liberty of skipping ahead in the movie to continue talking about Gibbs on solar energy. In this part of the movie, he jumps around to segments about wind power and electric vehicles, but I'm going to address solar, wind, and EVs one at a time, if you'll indulge me. We next see a solar installation when Gibbs searches out the football field-sized Lansing Water and Light solar demonstration site down the street from the GM plant where they build the Chevy Volt (more about that in a bit). He happens to get there just as a power company rep is giving a tour and showing off the flexible solar cells manufactured right there in Michigan. As Gibbs starts questioning the power company rep, their guide admits that the efficiency of the installed solar cells is 8% and that the whole array could really only power 10 homes during peak hours. Oh no! Another solar fail! Next, we're off to a trade show to talk to a salesman about the lifespan of a solar panel. "Well, some last for only 10 years." 10 years! Imagine the waste!

Now it's time for Gibbs to introduce Ozzie Zehner, Author of Green Illusions. The film neglects to mention that Ozzie is also one of the producers of Planet of the Humans or that he has penned a long series of articles critical of everything from LED light bulbs to solar panels. The article he is best known for was an IEEE Spectrum article in July 2013 called "Unclean at any Speed" in which he asserts that electric vehicles are more damaging to the environment than any fossil-fueled vehicle.  The basis of his argument, which gets repeated multiple times in the movie, is that the sunk carbon costs in manufacturing EVs (like the Chevy Volt) and recharging from fossil-fueled utilities makes them more damaging than conventional vehicles. Unsurprisingly, this article drew a near-record number of rebuttals from engineers who pointed out the numerous logical errors and distortions of fact in his article. (By the way, Ozzie, nice product placement with your book in the introductory shot!) Ozzie will be our guide to the environmental evils of the manufacture of green technologies: the rare earth metals that go into the magnets in motors, the aluminum in electric vehicle chassis, the toxic materials in the batteries that power electric vehicles, the carbon impact of concrete bases for wind turbines, the energy that goes into the steel for their supports, the environmental costs of manufacturing the metals in the generators, and - of course - the quartz and coal that goes into the glass for photovoltaic panels. Lots of quartz mined by crying children in pit mines in third world countries and lots and lots of coal. This is followed by a tour of 500 year old yucca being shredded to build solar farms and "mountain top removal" in Vermont to install wind turbines, followed by scenes of the waste left behind by decommissioned and abandoned solar and wind generation facilities.

At this point, I should mention that there is a lot I could agree with Gibbs and Zehner about. I don't think utility scale renewable energy plants are a good idea. They take up large swaths of land that could be more productively used (or kept as natural spaces) and any benefits of centralized power generation tend to be offset by power transmission losses and grid complexity. They are a great deal for utilities, who want to make sure that the profits from the rate payers keep coming in, regardless of how the electricity is generated, but aren't as good for the communities they serve. Personally, I also share Zehner's distaste for electric vehicles - not because I think they have a bigger carbon footprint, there is ample evidence that is not the case - but because it means maintaining the infrastructure and sprawl we've built to accommodate the more than 270 million automobiles in the US alone. Like Zehner has stated in many of his articles, I would rather see an emphasis on walkable cities and alternative transit modes than "clean" cars.

Unfortunately, the producers of this film decided to take a sensationalist approach to discussing potential issues with solar, wind, and electric vehicles. In fact, more than just sensationalist, they were intentionally deceptive. The solar panels with 8% efficiency? They were obviously prototypes being used in a demonstration site many years ago. 8% is about the lowest efficiency possible for a photovoltaic cell. Typical commercial PV panels have efficiencies in the range of 18-24%, while very high-efficiency panels have been built with up to 44% efficiency. The average lifespan of a solar panel is estimated at 25-30 years, not 10 years. (I can't imagine how cheap a panel would have to be to only last 10 years.) Even after the estimated lifespan, a panel doesn't stop working (generally), it has just lost enough efficiency that it can no longer provide its rated output. You could keep the panel in service and add additional panels to make up for the lost output or move it to a location where the lower output would be acceptable (perhaps from the main house to a shed, for example). So, the filmmakers cherry-picked the two worst case examples and presented them as though they were typical. A pattern that really does define their approach in this movie.

The last half of the movie was dedicated to intertwining two topics: biomass power generation and the economic corruption of the leading environmental leaders and organizations in the world. Once again, I completely agree with the assertion that biomass power generation isn't really a "green technology." Far too often, biomass means either burning virgin wood or burning garbage. Combustion always releases undesirable emissions, whether carbon dioxide, methane, chemicals, or particulate matter. Far too often, garbage incinerators get pressed into service as power generators, with predictable results of toxins in the air and toxic ash by-products.

So how did a premise that's pretty hard to argue with get used as proof that the environmental movement is corrupt and serving only to line the pockets of the leaders of the movement? Why by interspersing decades-old clips of environmental leaders (like Bill McKibben of 350.org) promoting biomass power generation, of course! The state-level Sierra Club representative Gibbs cornered at the bottom of the stairs couldn't give an answer on the spot about what the Sierra Club's position was on biomass...must be hiding something. Van Jones wasn't even sure what biomass was...definitely hiding something. 

And it gets worse. These environmentalists form partnerships with business people. Did you know that Al Gore sold Current TV to Al Jazeera...and they're operated by Kuwait...and Kuwait is an oil-producing nation? Guess he should have sold it to an American company. After all, it's not like we're the top oil-producing nation in the world or anything. And some of these organizations were "promoting" green investment funds that had some not-so-green looking company names in their portfolios. Proof positive that the Sierra Club, NRDC, 350.org, and the Nature Conservancy are all in the bankers' pockets. (Except Bill McKibben of 350.org, as just one example, has stated that they have never promoted any green investment fund.)

Now, don't get me wrong. There are plenty of times I find myself cussing at some of the big name environmental groups. They're not perfect. Neither are their leaders. (Look at the sponsors for the 2015 Earth Day celebration above - definitely some green-washing happening there!) But the arguments put forward by Gibbs are classic examples of ad hominem fallacies (dismissing the correctness of their positions based on their personal weaknesses).

Michael Moore described this movie as a "wakeup call" for the environmental movement. I wish it had been. The environmental movement could use a critical examination to identify areas where it has moved too slowly, veered off the optimal path, and fragmented into a loose collection of interest groups. This movie could have been a necessary critique to refocus and energize the movement. Instead, by the end of the movie, I really didn't even know what point Gibbs was trying to make, except to advance Zehner's faulty argument that "green technologies" are even more harmful than the status quo, so we should just continue to burn fossil fuels and stop wasting time with renewables. Gibbs also wrapped up with the astute observation that we aren't going to find a technological silver bullet to solve the climate crisis, but that we need to change our economic system, our consumption patterns, and reduce the population of Earth. Again, all very good points, but presented in such a defeating and negative way that no one can walk away from this movie anything other than depressed and demotivated. Maybe that's his plan: if enough people feel hopeless after watching this movie, they'll act on their own to reduce the human population.

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If you'd like to read more, here are some more reviews (that link to additional source data) that cover some details I didn't have time for in this review:

Skepticism Is Healthy, but Planet of the Humans Is Toxic - A Critical Review
Planet of the humans: A reheated mess of lazy, old myths
Fact check: New Michael Moore-backed documentary full of errors, fundamentally misunderstands electric system
Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change
Bill McKibben's Response to Planet of the Humans Documentary

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Our guest reviewer, Dan Stormont, is an engineer, educator, and activist, living in Tucson. He is currently the President of Sustainable Tucson and the Captain of Code for Tucson, the local brigade of Code for America. Dan is also a docent with Watershed Management Group. The opinions expressed in this review are his own and not the express positions of any of the organizations he is affiliated with.

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Our Desert Community Plants the Seeds for a New Doc

I apologize for not keeping up with my Reel Inspiration reviews for the past few months - even though there have been several meaningful films that really touched my heart.  I started writing reviews to help promote inspiring, thought provoking movies. I especially felt drawn to films that spoke to the important issues of our time.  In the process, I learned so much! I was inspired to start a new blog that has taken up much of my attention:
 www.sustainablelivingtucson.org. 

Since Dan and I started blogging about our journey to a more sustainable lifestyle we have had the opportunity to come in contact with so many inspiring community groups cultivating an oasis of sustainability here in Tucson.

Emma demonstrates how to shore up a catchment basin.

Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA) is reviving their cultural traditions by having tribal elders mentor youth on their native foods. Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace re-built the Mission Garden, a living museum, to demonstrate how to grow crops from pre-Columbian to those that Father Kino established in that location.  Native Seeds/SEARCH 

maintains community food traditions by preserving diverse and heritage seeds. Manzo Elementary, Changemaker High and City High tend to the next generation of desert gardeners. Through their community garden programs, the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona doesn’t just feed the hungry, but teaches them to grow food for themselves. Iskashitaa Refugee Network assists refugees in becoming self-sufficient (and reduces food waste) by harvesting fruit that would otherwise go unpicked. Dunbar Springs neighborhood worked to make their street an example of an edible, urban forest irrigated by rainwater. Watershed Management Group is building a community that works together to restore Tucson’s aquifer by implementing rainwater harvesting techniques and desert landscaping in people's yards, gardens, streets and businesses. These groups (among others) are gleaning from Tucson’s rich cultural history ways to live in harmony with the desert. This is truly an exciting time to be a part of this vibrant community!

Shooting the first segment with Brad Lancaster at Dunbar Springs

I decided to make a documentary about the accomplishments of these communities with the hope that it would inspire others. So I approached activist/ documentarian Evan Grae Davis with the idea. Evan had just read Edible Baja Arizona’s article about Tucson being the first US city to be designated a UNESCO World City of Gastronomy for the same advancements. He was excited to tell our story!

Our last shoot was for the rainwater harvesting segment featuring Watershed Management Group. Dan and I have planted our roots into the WMG community. In addition to being members of their co-op, Dan recently got the good news that he was accepted into their docent training program!  We love being a part of a community that is working to restore our groundwater and get our rivers flowing again.

Here we are shooting in Jason and Connie Carder's yard. (See Jason working alongside of Emma in the pic above.) They had 3 roadside catchment basins (wow!) and berms installed to control the runoff after their house had been flooded during a recent storm.

Happy owner Connie Carder

Co-op members Grant and Carrie Stratton share why they volunteer

Where's Waldo...uh...Dan? 

Emma helps a co-op volunteer arrange rocks 

Two hard workers: workshop instructor Emma Stahl-Wert and my baby Dan

Purslane!!!

A little patch of purslane ignited a conversation about edible weeds. Later in the day, Dan heard someone call out, "Don't step on the purslane!" A woman after my own heart! It's so great to work alongside kindred spirits who feel as passionate as we do about getting our rivers flowing again and protecting purslane!

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal-Stormont

The Arizona International Film Festival: My Fest Within a Fest

I have been attending the Arizona International Film Festival for 18 of its 25 years!  It all started in 1998 when I decided to make my first short film.  I went to find out what exactly constitutes a comic short.  Back then, the genres weren’t clearly labeled on the program, so I picked out any shorts that sounded the least bit funny. I accidentally ended up going to a dreaded doc program! I used to avoid documentaries because I thought they were dry, boring educational programming. I credit the Arizona International Film Festival with igniting my passion for documentaries. I found out that the best documentarians are great storytellers. Docs can be hilarious character studies, heart-breaking human tragedies, breath-taking thrillers, and current, cutting edge insights on important issues that affect us all.

I used to get one or two of the discount passes (5 films for $25.) But it is so worth it to get the all access pass. You can get your money’s worth in one weekend!  With over 100 films screened in 17 days, you can pick and choose to create your own fest within a fest. I managed to get at least four fests in: Human Rights Docs, War Films, International Shorts, and Tucson Filmmakers Fests.

Shorts programs are great because you can be a theater seat adventurer and discover a new interest that you might never have considered. And if you don’t care for one short, they’re short! Wait a few minutes and there will be another one. You can always hang out in the lobby with Angie and Amber and have a brewsky. But you may not get the chance. The shorts have been that good!  

My one regret is not seeing more of the comic and dramatic shorts this year. Ironic, since I started off as a screenwriter and I have made three narrative shorts. Two were screened at the AIFF: “Desert Angel” and the comedy I was doing the research for, “The Bath-a-holic.” Lately, my heart has been drawn to human rights and environmental films. (See my reviews of "Indivisible" and the "Anthropologist.") The short docs program was so inspiring for me.  Kai from “Riding the Highline” shared his adventures hopping trains and read a visceral poem inspired by the experience. (It won a Special Jury Reward for Creative Achievement!)  I am still in awe of Sister Judy Bisignano for her courage in sharing her weaknesses that made “Sister Jaguar’s Journey” so powerful.

The Arizona International Film Festival has grown into an important fest. It receives submissions from around the world.  This fest is not about celebrities. It’s about indie filmmakers connecting with their audience and other filmmakers. And there were plenty to connect with! Howon Kim, the lead actor of the fascinating short "Chalet," flew in from South Korea to spend the day at the fest. An interpreter was provided for the Q & A. But the actor didn’t need an interpreter to exclaim, “Filmmakers! I want to hang out with you!”

One of my favorite parts of the fest is hanging out with the filmmakers between films. The festival holds free Connect with Filmmakers panels each Saturday. I met Kai from "Riding the Highline" and Vinnie, the producer of "Monty and the Runaway Furnace"(Special Jury Award for Visual Storytelling) after one of the panels. A good rule of thumb is to attend the films of the people you meet. The first weekend I had a blast chillin’ with Seth (I ended up writing about his film, “The Anthropologist” that later won Best Documentary) and Doug the cinematographer of the beautifully shot “Caravan" (Special Jury Award Documentary).  It wasn’t about collecting business cards (though collect them I did!) It was about getting to know some really fascinating people!

Attending the fest is a great way to show support of Tucson's own indie filmmakers. I sat with writer/producer Ginia Desmond of the moving family film “Lucky U Ranch” (see my review) during several screenings.  I have enjoyed following Anna Augustowska's ("Our Desert Farms") progress since seeing her touching doc, "Donnie."  Frances Causey squeezed my hand when I showed up for her important doc, "Ours is the Land."  And I was there to congratulate Daniel Hyde when he won the coveted Arizona Filmmaker Award for his incredible short, "Manna."

Another great thing about the AIFF is its commitment to community engagement.  Mia Schnaible, our enthusiastic MC, encourages the audience to be a part of the discussion during the Q & A with the filmmakers.

Here we are in the front row with Ginia.

After screening “A Bitter Legacy” about the secret "Citizen Isolation Centers" built to separate "trouble-makers”within the WWII Japanese-American incarceration camp system, filmmaker Claudia Katayanagi spoke about her family connection to the story. This timely film really hit close to home when she called up an Arizona couple who remembered the camp near their trading post. Other members of the audience recalled the incarceration camp as well.

The filmmaker of “Return to Dak To” shared his experience of returning to Vietnam with four other men from his unit to deal with their unresolved issues from the war. He did a shout out to any other vets in the audience. Some were moved to share memories the film evoked. The audience really got involved in the discussion. We were all very emotional after that powerful doc and "Heart of a Tiger" about a WWII pilot who returns to China to thank the villagers who saved him.

“Ferguson 365” filmmaker Christopher Phillips also shared his journey. After Michael Brown was shot in his neighborhood, Christopher picked up a camera. He was arrested for recording a non-violent protest. He said he would be expanding on the theme of how poor black people are exploited by the system in the feature version. (How a $100 traffic ticket ends up being $1000 in fines that lands the driver in jail when he can’t afford it.) The Q & A led to a passionate exchange about social injustices during lunch.  Blown away by the audience response, Christopher said he could “feel the love.” Talking about "feel the love," "Ferguson 365" ended up winning Best Documentary Short! Congrats, Chris!  

This year,  AIFF organizers took advantage of the opportunity to share some cutting edge technology. I tagged along with my roboticist husband to the drone workshop. The filmmakers of “Our Desert Farms” and “Fly Spy” used drones to enhance their films with aerial shots. We enjoyed the spectacular drone footage and then the filmmakers shared their expertise and answered questions from inquisitive audience members. The workshop expanded my own vision about ways I could enhance my projects using drone footage. 

I never dreamed that I would become a pass-carrying fan of the festival docs. But I have been BLOWN AWAY with the quality of the docs this year. One after another of profound, important, mind-expanding docs! In its 25th year, the Arizona International Film Festival attracts filmmakers with their fingers on the pulse of the most current issues we face as a society. On the 16th day of the 17 day fest, I am overwhelmed. My biggest challenge was not having enough hours in the day to watch all the fascinating films or to write about them!

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal-Stormont
www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Docs on Climate Change and Hope: The Anthropologist and This Changes Everything

Since Dan and I started our blog, Sustainable Living Tucson, we’ve seen a plethora of films on climate change. Recently we watched “This Changes Everything,” screened as part of the Social Justice series held at the Loft Cinema. In the opening, narrator Stacey Raab admitted that she didn’t want to make another climate change documentary with polar bears. I found her doc in turns infuriating and inspiring. It was particularly painful to see conference attendees from the Heartland Institute (a think tank owned by the Koch brothers) cheering their success in convincing Americans that there was no global warming. But I loved the overall theme that we could rewrite our story. We don’t have to continue the narrative of profit at all cost. We can work together to take care of each other and the planet.

The film shared powerful stories of people from all over the globe uniting to do just that. Members of the first peoples of Alberta, Canada investigated a pipeline oil spill on their ancestral hunting lands. Indigenous people were studying up on the law in order to better fight for their rights. They were even installing their own solar panels. The movie demonstrated how much power people have when they stand together. Villagers in India succeeded in stopping a coal-fired power plant from being built in their backyard by using their bodies to block anyone from the power company from entering their village. People from around the world are now successfully using this ploy. This is the kind of message that people can get behind – one of hope.

Friday night at the Arizona International Film Festival, we had the pleasure of seeing “The Anthropologist.” One of the great things about attending a film festival is hearing the filmmakers illuminate us on their process and what inspired their projects. Director Seth Kramer also commented on how he didn’t want to make yet another climate change movie with polar bears and scientists explaining the greenhouse effect. Fortunately, the National Science Foundation sponsored the project based on the angle of an anthropologist studying the effect of climate change on people.

Compared with other environmental docs I’ve seen, this is a light-hearted romp. It stars a squabbling mother (Mary Bateson) and daughter (Susie Crate.) Susie is your typical American teenager. She doesn’t understand why she has to go with her mom to third world countries when she just wants to stay at home and hang out with friends. The film also featured segments with legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead’s now adult daughter about what life was like growing up in the field. It was included to explore how Susie might turn out.

As audience members we might relate to her discomfort of being dragged along on physically challenging trips to witness communities suffering from the effects of climate change, while being very aware of the great opportunity it is to see breath-taking scenery and colorful cultures.

Their first trip is a sort of family reunion with Susie’s relatives on her father’s side in Siberia. (Her mom met her father while working there as a young anthropologist.) We soon discover that Susie knows the language. In fact, she has a keen ear for languages and blatantly expresses her embarrassment when her mother struggles to communicate. We watch this teen grow as she sees firsthand how climate change is affecting that part of her family. The permafrost has melted causing the ground to turn to mush. The hay they need to feed their cows (their main source of food) has died as well as the trees. The change in Susie is especially evident when they return home and she visits with her friends. You can see it in her eyes as one of her friends says she doesn’t know if she believes in climate change because her father says it isn’t true.

After witnessing the devastation on island villages in the South Pacific being bombarded by the rising sea or the impact of glaciers melting in Peru, it’s hard not to believe in climate change. Traveling along with an anthropologist, we got a glimpse of the effect on the indigenous people, their cultures, and communities. What we learned about people left us with hope. People are durable and capable of change, and will find a way to adapt.

Both of these movies express hope for the people who inhabit this planet that we call home. “The Anthropologist” shows us how people are capable of change and “This Changes Everything” shows how we can change our story to one where we unite to save it.

PLEASE, SHARE! 

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal-Stormont
www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Documentarians: Our Last Refuge for the Truth

When I first started Reel Inspiration, it was my policy to only promote narrative films. But there is a crisis in our country resulting from the corporate takeover of the fourth estate, emasculating the power of journalism to act as watchdogs on those with power and influence. We seemed to have forgotten that it was once illegal to have media monopolies. There were reasons for those laws. But corporate-bought politicians changed that law right under our noses! The media convinced the American people to support unlimited campaign contributions from corporations. Passing the ironically named “Citizens United,” gave big business complete leeway to buy our politicians. Mega banks and big corporations now have unprecedented power to write legislation that profits them - at great cost for the rest of us. Big business bribed our congressmen and representatives to abolish laws that protected our environment or enforced quality controls on our food. They actually made it illegal to question how our food is prepared. That’s just crazy. In fact, it’s unconstitutional.

They sold the American people the idea of less government, so they could cut regulations on banks and Wall Street. This gave CEOs carte blanche to make risky (and even illegal) decisions with our investments – causing the recession. Fox news convinced us that our debt was caused by social services. They launched a full-blown smear campaign against hard working single mothers, calling them “Welfare Queens.” While corporations sent our jobs overseas, they distracted us by creating fear of "illegal immigrants" taking our jobs. Now we are spending billions sending undocumented immigrants to for-profit prisons. These are just a few ways that the corporate-owned media is manipulating us. The end result is, we can’t trust the news to deliver unbiased facts. That is why the work that documentarians like Frances Causey are doing is so important.

Frances Causey is a public interest journalist and documentary filmmaker who began her career in journalism with CNN where she was a Senior National Assignment Editor and Field Producer for fourteen years. At CNN, Frances was a senior member of a team honored with News and Documentary Emmys for their coverage of the Oklahoma City and Olympic Park Bombings. Frances has produced several feature length documentaries including her latest documentary feature, HEIST: WHO STOLE THE AMERICAN DREAM which was a 2012 New York Times Critic’s Pick and is currently airing in over 30 countries. HEIST won the prestigious Silver Chris Award for Social Issue Documentary at North America's oldest film festival, The Columbus International Film and Video Festival. In 2012, Frances was honored with the Women's International Film and Television Jury Award for her work on HEIST.

Frances’s latest documentary feature, THE LONG SHADOW, which is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2016, connects the dots between the United States’ history of slavery with the current deterioration of race relations. Frances’s new short film, OURS IS THE LAND, is about the desecration of Tohono O’odham sacred burial sites by the proposed massive Rosemont copper mine. 

I was honored to get a chance to converse with Frances about her documentaries and how her career as a journalist led to her telling these powerful stories.

Frances, you have such an impressive career as a journalist. Can you discuss why you decided to stop working at CNN and become a documentarian?

I left corporate journalism because it was just that - too corporate. That is - more concerned with profits than bringing truth to power which I believe is what the 4th estate or journalism is for. Covering news is expensive and it’s much easier to plop two opposing polemics in chairs and have them go at it. How is the public served by that?

At CNN, I began to question my involvement when we began covering the O.J. Simpson trial wall to wall. We literally closed down other bureaus so they could send folks to L.A. Many important stories went untold in that time period so we could ply our audiences with every salacious detail available, way beyond what was newsworthy.

I believe our democracy is suffering immense damage because of a lack of commitment by corporate owners of media to telling the truth. Today's news shows are more about selling products than holding leadership of this country accountable. Ironically, most of the truth telling is happening in documentaries, an art which has seen a resurgence thanks to the fall of journalism.

Could you share a little about why you chose each of these three subjects?

I wanted to make HEIST because I could so readily see how, as a worker myself, the economy was being rigged against us (i.e. no wage increases, gradual erosion of benefits, etc.) The "race to the bottom" economy was the pink elephant in the room that no one - particularly the corporate mainstream news media - was paying attention to. It was a great "whodunnit" story. Journalists are not very good at telling economic stories. But this was not just an economic story but a criminal one.

OURS IS THE LAND--- I got involved early on. Ours is the fight against the disastrous Rosemont mining proposal and again, no one in the news was covering what was actually going to happen if the mine was built, including the desecration of Tohono O'odham burial sites and archaeological treasures such as a rare Hohokam ball court. While the mine says they will build around the court, it’s a moot point because the court will be roped off with virtually no access available to it. We created essentially a news bureau so we could distribute good, fact-based, well-researched info on the mine which is at: www.rosemontminetruth.com

THE LONG SHADOW is the name of my new documentary feature that connects our history of slavery to the current problems with race relations and the continued oppression of the African-American community in the U.S. The film is a hybrid - part historical/current issue/character driven memoir film about the less than patriotic, startling facts behind the founding of United States relating to slavery and its subsequent consequences, and the painful legacy of these hard truths, which I believe haunts the United States to this day. Much of the circumstances behind our founding has been hidden and instead, as school children, we were taught the Moonlight and Magnolias version. But in reality, our nation’s long history of racial, nearly genocidal oppression of African-Americans in the United States has deep roots in our beginnings.

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal
www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Artists Light the Path

Since my post on, "5 Flights Up," I have been ruminating on whether artists really make a difference in our world today. 

In a addition to enriching and inspiring our lives, artists make a difference by casting light on humanity. In, “The Salt of the Earth,” Win Wenders trains his camera on the Brazilian social photographer Sabastiao Salgado and his art.  

“A photographer is literally someone drawing with light. A man (or woman) writing and rewriting the work with light and shadows.”

Wenders took up this project because he was profoundly moved by Sabastiao’s haunting photographs and how they capture the light and shadows of humanity.  Sabastiao Salgado felt called to shine a light on the human faces of some of the most extreme historical tragedies (famine, genocide, slavery) of the last 40 years. Supported by his wife Lélia, he dedicated his life to traveling the globe as a witness to the slave conditions in Brazil’s Serra Pelada gold mines, famine in Ethiopia, and genocide in Rwanda (among others.)  His harrowingly beautiful photographs called worldwide attention to some of the most horrific atrocities of mankind.

What makes this documentary even more poignant is that it was co-directed by Sabastiao Salgado’s son, Juliano Salgado.  While Sabastiao’s wife encouraged him to follow his path, his son was left without a father.  By working on this film, Juliano grew to understand the importance of his father’s work.

But witnessing all that suffering eventually took its toll on Sabastiao.  Deeply wounded by the degree of human cruelty and bloodshed in Rwanda, Sabastiao was forced to give up his mission. But instead of defeating this courageous man; it inspired a revolutionary new path.  Returning to his family farm, he found that drought had savaged the land. What had once been a lush rain-forest, had become a stark desert.

His wife Lélia suggested that they try to replant the paradise that he had known as a child.  They cultivated a new way to reinvigorate the barren land. They successfully planted 100,000 native trees and other vegetation and eventually brought back the rain-forest!

Sabastiao Salgado journeyed the world – just to find his mission in his own back yard.

 Lélia and Sabastiao Salgado's farm today.

Another social photographer, Lisa Kristine, has taken up the lantern and is casting light on the human face of slavery.  Working with Free the Slaves, Lisa braved hell on earth to witness and document the lives of modern day slaves. At TEDx Maui, she shared her devastating photos and stories.  I was shocked to find that there are currently over 27 million people enslaved – double the number of people taken from Africa during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.  Families have been enslaved for generations for debts as low as $18. Many have been enslaved so long that they don’t know they are slaves. It was all they have ever known.

In the brick kilns of India and Nepal, whole families work 16 hours in scorching heat without water or restroom breaks. They essentially live in ovens. While photographing the kilns, Lisa’s camera stopped working. To revive it, she had to give it air-conditioned breaks. She recognized the sad irony that her camera was treated better than these people. In another part of India, families are enslaved in the silk trade. It is their job to dip their hands into the toxic dye. One father said that they hoped to someday to have their own silk business, so they could get paid for “dyeing.” In the Himalayas, children carry huge slates of stone on their backs. On Lake Volta, children are forced to work all night untangling heavy fishing nets petrified that they will topple their little fishing boats and drown because they can’t swim.  In Ghana, mothers carry their babies as they pan for gold while wading in water poisoned with mercury.  In Kathmandu, women and children experience violent abuse as sex slaves. In our own backyard, as many as 300,000 American children have been sold into the sex industry.

As a representative of Free the Slaves, Lisa descended a narrow mine shaft alongside men with tuberculosis and mercury poisoning forced to work 72 hours in the dark.  In addition to the torturous conditions, she found hope piercing the darkness like mine lanterns. Manuru, who had inherited his uncle’s debt, valiantly worked with tuberculosis and an infected leg. Free the Slaves has given him hope that one day he will be freed and receive an education.

Lisa felt humbled by these people’s quiet dignity and endurance.  “This sort of determination in the face of unimaginable odds fills me with complete awe. I want to shine a light on slavery.  I told the workers that I wanted to illuminate their stories and their plight. (That) we will be bearing witness to them. We will do whatever we can to make a difference in their lives. If we can see each other as fellow human beings, then it becomes very difficult to tolerate atrocities like slavery. I hope these images awaken a force in those who view them, people like you, and I hope that force will ignite a fire and that fire will shine a light on slavery. For without that light the beast of bondage will continue to live in the shadows.”

Dorothea Lange lit the way for these social photographers.

"Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange

From 1935-39, Dorothea Lange's photographs brought the plight of the poor and forgotten (sharecroppers, displaced farm families, and migrant workers) to public attention.

These courageous artists light a path through the darkness. Do they make a difference? That depends on whether we take up the lantern.

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Note: On the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, CBS News aired the Edward R. Morrow documentary, "Harvest of Shame" showing the deplorable conditions our migrant farm workers faced. Recently, I watched the documentary, "Food Chains" and was shocked to find that those desperate conditions still prevail today. But I was also inspired by the tomato pickers courageous fight for fair wages and treatment.

On the Wrong End of the FOOD CHAIN

I have attended the Arizona International Film Festival for ten years now. I've seen it grow into a world class festival by screening excellent independent films from Tucson and around the world. After watching several fascinating films in 2014, my ever-inquisitive fiancée, Dan Stormont, insisted that we get passes again this year. Thursday we attended the opening night screening of the enthusiastically received local documentary, "Many Bones, One Heart" (by Leslie Ann Epperson) about Tucson's All Souls Procession. Leslie really does Tucson proud! We have already gotten our money's worth in the first weekend of this two week fest.

Dan and I attend numerous films and lectures on the importance of creating a sustainable food system as research for Dan's blog on THE PINEAPPLE PROJECT (a humanitarian project to get agricultural information, such as what grows best in their area, to subsistence farmers so they can be more successful.) So we were glad to see the documentary Food Chains on the festival program.

We were deeply moved by this powerful documentary on how our farm workers are treated in this country. We were shocked to see how little things have changed since 1960 when CBS aired Edward R Murrow's documentary, Harvest of Shame. In this country that Murrow calls "the best fed country in the world," the people who harvest our food are working a brutal 13 hour day, and still aren't making enough to adequately feed and house their families.

This movie shows the courageous efforts of a group of farm workers who are rallying support for "Fair Food." This organization is standing up to grocery store chains demanding that they pay enough to provide workers a living wage and refuse to buy produce from farmers who abuse their workers. What struck me was how easy it would be to correct this problem. If we pay just one cent (one cent!) more per pound for fruits and vegetables, it would double the pay of farm workers from $10,000 to a living wage of $20,000 a year. We just need to create more awareness of the problem. Food Chains does an admirable job explaining one of the most important humanitarian issues of our time. Watch this film to see how you can help. This is doable, folks!  This is one problem we can solve. 

We want to thank the Arizona International Film Festival for creating more awareness. 

Please, help us get the word out by sharing this with your friends! 

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal 

Dan was inspired to write about it on his blog too! 

"We used to own our slaves. Now we just rent them."

by Dan Stormont

www.thepineappleproject.org

On the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, CBS News aired a documentary by Edward R Murrow entitled Harvest of Shame.

It documented the plight of a crew of migrant farm workers in the United States as they worked their way up the east coast from Florida to New Jersey. It showed in painful detail the long hours, hard working conditions, desolate housing, lack of education, and meager incomes earned by the farm workers brought in to harvest the crops. They often went hungry while harvesting the food that graced American families' Thanksgiving tables.

The documentary also addressed some of the causes of the farm workers' situation, like farmers who were being squeezed themselves by the large food producers and distributors who were controlling the price of crops. Farm workers had difficulty organizing to demand better working conditions. The law was rarely on the side of the farm workers. As Murrow noted, "The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruit and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. Maybe we do."

Nearly 55 years later, things must be better right? In some ways they have improved slightly and there have been some gains (often followed by comparable losses). However, as the recent documentary Food Chains demonstrates, many farm workers are toiling in the fields for long hours while still not earning enough to own a home, save for the future, and care for their children. Far too many are still going hungry while picking the produce we eat. The big food producers, wholesalers, and retailers are still controlling the markets and exploiting farmers and farm workers alike.

Nothing is more important than a sustainable food chain. We all rely on it. But, right now, the food we buy at the supermarket is being harvested by people who are earning below poverty wages. Surely, we can afford one cent more per pound of produce to improve the lives of the people who harvest our food? That's how much it would cost to double the wages of farm workers..one cent a pound.

Seek Food Chains out. Watch it. Think about what it is saying and about the human stories being told. Then, take action! Don't buy food at stores that refuse to pay enough for farm workers to make a living. Demand action from your representatives. This isn't politics...it's just humanity. And it is ensuring a viable, sustainable food chain for all of us!