Film festival raises environmental awareness

2015/12/04

A film festival designed to enhance public awareness of environmental protection and encourage urban farming is underway at the Image Museum of Hsinchu City.

Organized by the Hsinchu County-based Wutong Foundation, the Dec. 1-5 event includes five documentaries and a feature film from the U.S., with two professors and the founder of a popular farmers’ market attending post-screening discussions.

“Themed ‘food forest’ this year, the festival aims to inspire audiences to ponder the relationship among people, food and the environment, as well as how to balance the needs of development with the sustainability of Mother Nature,” a foundation staffer said.

The six screened pieces are “Paldang” of South Korea, which describes the efforts of Korean farmers to thrive despite the construction of a dam, as well as Hollywood film “Elysium” and American documentaries “Growing Cities,” “Microtopia,” “Plant This Movie” and “Save the Farm.”

Audience members gave rave reviews about the festival’s opening film “Plant This Movie” by Karney Hatch, who has produced and directed independent projects for former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and a number of nongovernmental organizations in Latin America, Africa and Europe.

The documentary showcases several communities in Cuba, Ethiopia, Peru, India, the U.K., the U.S. and mainland China where residents work together to design, plant and grow sustainable urban forest gardens, which are intended to produce food and rehabilitate local ecosystems. Founder of 248 Farmers’ Market Yang Ju-men participated in an open discussion after the screening of the film.

The 2013 sci-fi thriller “Elysium” starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster has been selected as the final film of the festival.

The movie depicts a future in which the rich and powerful are entitled to live on Elysium—a high-tech human habitat located in Earth’s orbit—while everyone else is forced to live on the overpopulated and polluted planet. The hope is that the film will encourage people to consider what might happen if the Earth’s natural resources are not properly managed.

Founded in 2013, the Wutong Foundation is committed to preserving the environment and promoting tree planting and urban farming. It established Taiwan’s first food forest near Hsinchu Station of the Taiwan High Speed Rail this year.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=239728&ctNode=2194&mp=9)