| EARTH
VISION GRAND PRIZE |
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Hibakusha: At the End of the World
2003 / Japan / 116min
Producer: Koizumi Shukichi, Kawaida Hiroyuki
Director: Kamanaka Hitomi
In November 1998, the director visited Iraq for the first time
and met children fighting leukemia and cancer suspected to be caused
by depleted uranium ammunition fired during the Gulf War. One of
them, a fourteen-year-old girl named Rasha, died leaving the message,
"Do not forget me" written on a small piece of paper.
Iraq, America, Japan -- the quest to hear the voices of "Hibakusha",
atomic-bomb victims and radiation exposed victims in the modern
day -- begins.
A boy suffering from leukemia named Mustafa and his family are in
Iraq. Doctor Hida Shuntaro, who himself was exposed to radiation
from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, continues to call attention to
the danger of low-level radiation exposure. Tom Bailey, who lives
near the Hanford nuclear facility where plutonium for the atomic
bomb used in Nagasaki was manufactured, is currently suing the U.S.
government for damage caused by radioactive contamination. Can we
stop this contamination that spans all over the world?
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| JURORS
SPECIAL PRIZE |
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Muddy Waters:Life and Death on the Great Barrier
Reef
2003 / Australia / 52min
Producer: Tony Wright, Stuart Menzies, Sally Ingleton
Director: Sally Ingleton
The Great Barrier Reef is dying. Global warming and outbreaks
of crown-of-thorns starfish have put extraordinary pressure on the
coral. Now scientists have identified another threat - agricultural
run-off. Sugarcane farmers are reeling at the prospect that their
land management practices may be part of the problem. Some locals
are trying to bring all the parties together to develop a workable
solution, but leading the way can be hard work. Muddy Waters is
a story of a small community facing the challenges of responsibility
and change. It asks what's killing the reef and can anything be
done to be save one of the world's greatest natural treasures?
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| EXCELLENCE
PRIZE |
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The Dream Land
2002 / Indonesia / 30min
Producer: Icang Tisnamiharja
Director: Tonny Trimarsanto
Indonesia, whose multicultural and multiracial background always
brings to mind a sense of admiration and worry. Its wealth is abundan.
but behind the exorcist there are conflicts in many regions which
do not have the sensitivity to draw one to tears, nor are they constructively
resolved. The Environment is one of the biggest issues in Indonesia,
but not everybody knows about this issue because government keeps
it secret.
The Dream Land is about people in Porsea Sumatera who fight for
their land. Needing ten years to shut down the pulp industry, they
fought with the biggest pulp industry in Sumatra at the cost of
many lives. During that period of time, many people died, while
others lost their families.
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| EARTH
VISION AWARD |
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Iriomote Island: The Frog that flourishes in Phytotelmata
2003 / Japan / 33min
Producer: JM Travel Photo Co., Ltd.
Director: Jishage Hiroshi, Murakami Sadao
Iriomote Island, located in the Nansei Islands of Japan, has
its own unique natural environment as well as a world of small well-adapted
creatures which live there. When rain falls on an island that can
be called one big forest, a small water pocket called a Phytotelmata
is made. The film traces the life of Eiffinger's Tree Frog, one
of
the small creatures that live in the Phytotelmata. This small environment
is made up of one ecosystem mixed with various food chains in which
the struggle for survival is just as difficult as that of an African
savanna.
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Timber to Tibet
2003 / Nepal / 28min
Producer: Rabindra Pandey
Director: Mohan Mainali
Nepal has produced many success stories on forest management.
However, Nepal's northern most region has been facing serious deforestation
for a decade. Neglected by the center region and lackingeconomic
opportunities, the villagers who are conservationist by culture
and tradition are now felling trees. They sell the felled trees
in Tibetan markets across the Himalayas in order to buy salt and
other essentials. The film deals with the compulsion of deforestation
and its impact. |
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Changing Desert into Cradle of Green: The Dream
of a Biologist Gordon Sato
2003 / Japan / 23min
Producer: Sakano Hiroshi
Director: Juhn Yong-Sung
Dr. Gordon Sato is a Japanese American who has been supporting
people in Eritrea, Africa who has been suffering from starvation
and poverty caused by thirty years of war. He successfully grows
mangrove trees with his own unique methods on the driest and most
barren coastlines, where it rains only 20 mm a year. His goal is
to introduce ocean ecosystems as well as to create an "ocean
ranch" to increase the number of livestock by
feeding them mangrove leaves. He named this the Manzanar Project,
after the "Manzanar" Japanese internment camp, where he
spent his childhood during World War II. This film shows the activities
and dream of Dr. Gordon Sato.
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Quest on Ice
2003 / Japan / 49min
Producer: Matsumoto Toshihiro, ,Ikeo Masaru
Director: Egawa Hiroshi
Ice sheets 2000 meters thick cover Antarctica and have a huge
impact on the global environment. These ice sheets generate a cold
sea current called the Antarctic Bottom Water that cools oceans
throughout the world. Recently a team of researchers have
found that the continental ice sheets on the western side of Antarctica
are not as stable as we had thought. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
disintegrated completely, the sea level would rise 5 meters higher
than their current level all over the world. For several weeks,
the film crew lived in tents with the four scientists of the British
Antarctic Survey, while studying the Antarctic ice and documenting
the unseen power of the ice that affects the fate of the global
environment.
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The Apocalypse of A Kind
2003 / Korea / 47min
Producer: Yang Jeon-wook
Director: Lee Yeon-kyu
It is well known fact that animals are in danger of extinction.
However, in what way and
for what reason they are getting extinct has not been witnessed.
What is the humankind doing for these endangered species?
Forty percent of animals in the whole world are consumed in Asia.
This is our report on poaching and illegal animal trading after
eight months news coverage activities. Animals are persecuted and
killed from men's greed, however poachers from the developing country
cannot make a living without hunting. We will inspect their co-existence.
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Good Riddance: Flies &Termites
2003 / Australia /10min
Producer: Nick Hilligoss
Director: Nick Hilligoss
You've got rats in the attic,flies in the kitchen, and termites
terminating the floor joists.
You need Eco Friendly, the clean, green, biological pest controller
with a no pollution solution for every pest.
One day in the bar, there was a lot of thirsty customers but also
attracted lots of flies. You can't spray fly killer on the customers....Maybe
this is a good job for Eco's crack team of highly trained frogs!
..or maybe not...?
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Tracking the E-Waste Trail
2002 / Hong Kong / 20min
Producer: Lau So-mui
Director: Canace Lam Kit-yin,
Benny Sea Chi-wai
The Guiyu, a small village in the Guangdong Province of China, area
is a newly industrialized area specializing in the management and
recycling of computer wastes. The workers there burn computers original
components to extract valuable metals from them. The useless parts
are then casually discarded, releasing toxic materials, polluting
the surrounding environment.Media Watch investigative teams went
to the U.S. and Canada in search of the source of this e-waste,
and discovered that, using the euphemism environmental recycling,
these countries are actually dumping their waste on other countries. |
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Tadao Sato
Born in 1930. A film critic. He has written more than 130 books since
publishing his first movie review in 1956. He has also been editing and
publishing a series of personal movie magazines, Study of Movies History,
with his wife, Hisako. In 1989, he and his wife were awarded the Kawakita
Prize for their contribution to internationalcultural exchange through
movies. His book History of Japanese Films was given the Mainichi Publication
Culture Awards in 1995. For this accomplishment he was also given a Purple
Ribbon Medal and the Art Encourage Prize of the Ministry of Education,
Science and Culture in 1996. He was given Okgwan-Order of Culture Merit
from Korea and Chevalier de I'Ordre des Arts et Lettres from France in
2002. He is currently a president of Japan Academy of Moving Images.
HO Hyun-chan
Born in 1926. A film critic. After working as a writer at the Department
of Cultural Affairs of Donga Daily, he established Korean Culture Promotion.
He has produced six story films including Late Autumn, Children in the
Firing Range, and A Seashore Villageand 40 documentaries including Beauty
of Korea. Since 1950s, he has been writing film reviews and columns. He
has held the board chairperson of the Korean Film Archive, the president
of the Korean Motion Picture Promotion Corporation and Seoul Telecom,
and the chairperson of the Korean Association of Film Critics. Also, he
has received the Order of Culture of Republic of Korea and is the author
of 100 Years of Korean Cinema published by Bungakushisousha Publishing
Inc. and Waga cinema no tabi - Kankoku eiga wo furikaeru (My journey through
the history of Korean cinema) published by Gaifusha Publishing Inc.
Anne McDonald
Born in Canada and graduated from the University of British Columbia majoring
in Japanese studies. She is an assistant professor at Miyagi University
and visiting researcher at the Global Environmental Forum. Besides conducting
folklore related fieldwork in the Japanese countryside, she is a publisher
of eco-ing. info,an environmental issues' magazine, (in Japanese) published
by Shimizukobundo Co.She is the author of many books including Japanese
Villages and I.
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