Differences

As many of you know, I am not from Australia. My country is a small dot in the map, near Italy, in the Mediterranean and its name, Greece. Many of you might know Greece from its history or its latest economical disaster.

Australia is considered one of the most environmental countries, if not the most progressive one concerning environmental behavior, such as recycling, protection of the wildlife, water savings and many many more. So, it is kind of challenging for me to just compare my country’s environmental policy with Australia’s and just mention the little things that made me appreciate Australia more and get mad at my own country.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived in Sydney is the majority of recycling bins, almost everywhere. Back home to find a recycling bin, many times you have to walk at least 10 minutes. Here they are everywhere. Even if you don’t wish to recycle, you don’t have a choice. In Greece people think that recycling is a waste of time, so I faced a sort of “discrimination” because I want to recycle. Quite amazing.

The second and most wonderful thing I found totally different is how people respect bicycles here. As a bike rider myself, back home it is hard to ride your bike easily and with no worries. Here it is like a paradise. You can go everywhere with your bike, because the government really cares about them. By creating new special roads and parks really gives the impression that bikers are not being encountered as anyone else. And that is a great great difference.

The last thing I would like to add is the signs for saving water everywhere. In every shower I ever been until now there are signs that remind people not to waste too much water while they are having a shower. This might seem insignificant to many of you but to me it is one of the many small strategies that are followed, so that people will appreciate water even more.  I wish this type of thinking would exist in Greece too.

The first 10 movies

The movies below are the first I researched about my journal. They are completely different from each other, some talk about activism, others about animals rights or global warming. There are their links too, but many they don’t have their own site, so I put from other sites synopsis and trailers, so that anyone can check them out. But basically for my future group. In the next few days I will upload more movies, with a synopsis online, not only with a link. The whole research for movies is really difficult, because I do not want random documentaries. There must be the ones that make the difference and will attract my audience and hopefully give as much feedback as is needed for the desired goal.

All this researched material is available to anyone, but when the specific people will be chosen and of course agree to the whole process, they will be given a complete detailed copy of every movie with a synopsis, so that they will decide which 3 movies to watch. After that they will be given the films and a deadline to watch them. The next step will be discussed and analysed the next days.

Arctic Tale (2007) (animals species)

http://www.arctictalemovie.com/

Be The Change (2008) (activism)

http://www.livinglightly.ca/BTC-trailer/

Call of the Hummingbird (an eco – manifesto)

http://callofthehummingbird.com/

The Yes Men Fix the World (activism)

http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/yes.html

Home (2009) (portrait of the Earth)

http://www.home-2009.com/us/index.html

Winged Migration (2003)(bird migration)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301727/

Earthlings  (animal rights – violence)

http://www.earthlings.com/

The Corporation (2004) (consumerism)

http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=46

In Debt we Trust (2006) (consumerism, debt, corporations)

http://www.streaming-madness.net/watch-online/documentary/in-debt-we-trust-2006/

The Fuel (2008) (energy, global warming)

http://thefuelfilm.com/#panel-1

The first idea …

My basic idea is a standalone project, totally dedicated to environmental cinema and movies and its influence to the general audience. The basic information that will be included will be at first the history of this cinema, when did it started, why did it started, its evolution until now, how it grew and of course its results so far, not only on people, but in the cinema business too.

But this won’t be the main project. I will have 10 people co-operating with me, people with different background, age, occupation, nationality and education. These people will be chosen randomly, I guess this will be the major difficulty, to find the right persons needed. I will have on my site a big list of various environmental movies, categorized, this depends on great research too, because I want to have the most representative movies I could get, others for water, energy, global warming, animals. air pollution, consumerism etc.

These people will be given the list, and THEY will decide which movies to watch. I haven’t decided about the number yet, maybe one or maybe more. After that I will interview each one of them, in video or sound on how this movies influenced them. Did they changed their perspective about the environment after watching these movies? If yes how? If no, why? My main goal is to see how environmental cinema raise awareness of the general public of ecological problems, through artistic media do people change their environmental behavior? And if they do, how do they do it?