While Bart, Boris and Stella work on a fine edit of the first 75 minutes for the IDFA selection in Holland, we start from this house in the jungle for the last scenes in Costa Rica. We´ll travel to the Br Bri Indians who succeeded to fight malaria without the use of DDT. But new dangers are ahead. Far away upstream people want to start gold mining, and mercury will threaten their unspoiled environment. Photo by Amanda Merkx
Last weekend at the Dutch Environmental Film Festival Strawberry Earth Silent Snow proved to be one of the greenest film projects: we filmed all over the world with local crews, we found a great editor in our city of Utrecht, Boris Everts, who's coming on bike to edit at drsFILM headquarters and we decided to postpone the world premiere from September in Toronto to IDFA in November, being able to invite people who helped us in Greenland, India and Africa to the city of Amsterdam, avoiding many extra travels to Canada.
Ole Jorgen Hammeken organized an expedition to the ice cap and one of the glaciers in Uummannaq bay with Pipaluk Knudsen-Ostermann (photo), the film crew and six dog sledges. New studies warn that - even after a complete ban of DDT - glacial melt water still contaminates the arctic, which has the studies say, “compelling consequences” if global warming should continue and intensify. Another reason to stop the production of DDT and other Persistent Oganic Pollutants. Photo: Viraj Singh
Next week we'll start filming for the feature length film in Uummannaq and Illulissat. For cameraman Viraj Singh it’s the first time up north and he’s really looking forward to it. He's also one of the main characters in the making off. In that film “An Indian in Greenland” he comments on the Silent Snow story and especially the idea of India being responsable for all the pollution in the world. Of course, a lot of it comes from his country, but many western countries are also to blame. Photo: Jan van den Berg
We filmed in a recently DDT sprayed village in Northern Uganda. The interviews given by the responsable authorities in the ministry in Kampala proved to consist of merely lies. They had been paid by the chemical industry. It was not the care for their people that had forced the spraying, but it was just their turn to eat, an African expression for this extreme corruption. But sometimes justice prevails: during our stay he and some colleagues had been arrested and put in jail. Photo: Viraj Singh
The ferry over the beautiful Periyar river near Eloor, an island with 160 chemical factories. One of these factories produces DDT, a dangerous pesticide still widely used in India. In case of an accident people are trapped on the island, because the ferry closes at 9 PM. Jose, appointed by Greenpeace as first river keeper in Asia, fights against the pollution of his river. But it doesn’t make him popular amongst his fellow islanders, because many are dependent on these factories. Photo: Pipaluk Knudsen-Ostermann
After 9 awards on International Film Festivals for the short film in which two girls examine the slow poisoning of their environment we’re already working on the long film. We follow Pipaluk Knudsen-Ostermann who’s traveling all over the world to the sources of this pollution. “That we, especially young women, can’t eat our food anymore. The mere thought of it made me crazy.” In different continents she faces heart breaking dilemma’s. The premiere of the feature length film is planned for the fall 2010. Photo Bertrand Lozay
In Tanzania Pipaluk Knudsen-Ostermann (picture) meets film maker Glory Mollel and discovers how difficult it is to get rid of DDT in an East African village. People can't afford the more expensive alternatives and need something against malaria mosquitoes and flees. The governments of neighboring countries Uganda and Mozambique start indoor spraying of DDT again, leaving the farmers - who just started to grow ecological cotton - with a harvest they can't sell anymore. A solution seems far away. Photo Viraj Singh
The short Silent Snow film won two awards at the Short Shorts Film Festival in Japan with screenings in Tokyo and Yokohama. The prestigious Stop Global Warming Award and J-Wave Audience Award, given by the Japanese minister of environment. The festival is the most important short film festival in Asia.
Silent Snow was awarded Best International Short Film at Planet in Focus: International Environmental Film & Video Festival.
The Jury: “a beautiful thoughtful film”