10/27: Garbage Dreams
Set outside of Cairo, the Zeballeen (Garbage People) earn their living by recycling 80% of garbage from the upper and middle class homes in the area. They aren't recycling in the sense of reusing bottles or other materials. They actually shred various materials (aluminum, plastic) and they are sold in its pure form so that it can be remolded or rebuilt into something else. They literally go door to door to pick up garbage from these Cairo suburbs, on these shanty little trucks in blankets and tarps, and take them back to their own community to do the sorting and breaking down of the materials. There are people in the Zeballeen community who cannot WAIT to grow up and have this job. They know it's a way (or THE way) to make a living, since they are not the upper class or middle class, or, well they say they aren't even the lowest class, they are the nothing class. But they have a lot of pride in what they do. When the foreign companies come in, their jobs are snatched from them and they are forced to find other means of employment/earning money. This starts to affect families and their community. One boy's father was arrested and taken to jail because he was attempting to build an apartment for the son, so that he could be married. Apparently these are stipulations in this community. One cannot be married until one has his own apartment. So this family was now missing its breadwinner, and the young man has to earn his living to support the rest of the family. Capitalism is presented here as an issue, family is clearly important, and environmentalism is important. The foreign companies have nice big trucks that come collect the garbage but dump most of the materials in landfills, only recycling about 30% of the materials, not 80%. The Zeballeen people try to get the citizens on their side by letting them know that the foreign companies are not recycling like they would recycle. It seems they are still in this battle to regain their jobs and sustain themselves.
10/28: Carbon Nation
Very similar to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" this film looked at all of the causes and influences on Global Warming. A big portion of it blames companies for their waste and use of unnecessarily oil - for cars, farming, transportation, military operations, etc.
10/29: Food Inc.
This film came out in 2008 in the US and from what I've been told, "it made me go vegetarian." I've heard it from a few people, which I thought was interesting. I figured if I saw it, I might be compelled to be MORE of a vegetarian but in the end, it just confirmed my beliefs in meat and how awfully some of the animals we (Americans) eat are treated. Food Inc. also points a finger at the meat industry for global warming, not causing but certainly contributing. Farmers were interviewed and showed off some of their practices - both good and bad. No companies mentioned in the film agreed to be interviews or show their different spaces (cow pastures, chicken coops, etc.) - what are they hiding? I think the bottom line of this film was - where does our food come from? Do we even know anymore? So much of it is processed, and so many animals are treated so badly for our (human) benefit. This can't be right. It's just a huge list of injustices going on in the world - treatment of animals and workers, environmental pollution, shady business deals. We all, however, consume food in a variety of ways. If we spent our dollars on cage free eggs or organic food instead of processed crap from a store, we'd be voting on ethics and what is the right thing to do. I think at home (in NY) I do my best to buy local and organic products when possible, even though sometimes it's more expensive. In fact, it usually is more expensive because apparently the major food companies are given subsidies by the government. I had never really thought about this until the film portrayed this - but it's no wonder why whole natural food really IS more expensive. You'd think with less processing and more natural products, it would cost less money, but you can't argue with subsidies when they make all kinds of bad-for-you-foods really cheap. Yay McDonald's, contributing to the world's obese. Anyway, I think it's important to reiterate the choice we have at the supermarket, at the farmer's market, or even in our own gardens, should we have them. Eventually, when enough people start buying only cage free eggs (probably the minority of eggs available at the stores), the companies producing non-cage free eggs will lose some steam and become the minority product at the grocery store. I think we should try and make it happen!
10/29: Grown in Detroit
What a film - young teenage women, pregnant or already mothers, are attending a school just for them. First of all, that's amazing. A public school in a run-down city helping these women continue their education in a safe non-judgemental space. Second of all, one of the main focuses in this school is learning how to garden. Because of the population drop in Detroit over the last 20 years (approximately), there are a number of abandoned fields that are left unmaintained. The principal of this school has tried to gain access to as much land as possible so the girls can learn how to plant, grow, harvest, and sell produce at the "Grown in Detroit" market. Here they learn land skills and business skills and people skills. The teachers at the school need to be given so much credit for their patience and hard work. I had the opportunity to stay after the film and engage in Q&A with the film creators/directors, which I felt was quite a privilege. No other film I attended in the festival had this opportunity. The two were Dutch, but the woman had a connection to Michigan due to an exchange student type of program that allowed her to live with a family while she was in high school. Years later when she went back to reconnect, this seemed to inspire her. It certainly inspired me. Having seen Food Inc. just before this one on Friday, I really am thinking more about growing my own food, or at least some of it. My dad has had a vegetable garden in Port Washington for many years. He is always so proud of the fruits of his labor. Well, the vegetables of his labor - tomatoes, cucumbers, string beans (my fave, he always keeps some for me). They go into our salads and he is so proud. I imagine it must be cheaper than spending money on these vegetables at the store, which probably come from far away, which means you are paying for the gasoline in a truck to drive it from somewhere to the store in Port Washington, which means there is more pollution in the air from the truck itself. Grow it in your own backyard and learn how to harvest it, and it's healthier for ourselves and our planet.
10/30: Play Again
This film was created with the knowledge that the current generation of children (presumably this means American children, since it was a film produced in the US and filmed in/around Portland) spends far too much time in front of a screen (tv, computer, video games) and with all kinds of technology at their fingertips. Although some children are still encouraged to play outdoors, go hiking, ride a bicycle, many youth are stuck in front of a screen for 5-12 hours per day, and the parents of the teens featured in this video seemed not to care very much if they are allowing this kind of behavior to continue. So these teenagers from urban and suburban Portland, who were partiularly fond of their gadgets and video games, were taken out into the wilderness for a week long camping trip without these things, no internet, and they had the chance to see what life could be like living in another extreme. All of the lessons they seemed to learn from their experience, one day in, two days in, a week after, 3 months after, were all experiences I think I had growing up and working at this camp. How lucky I am to have this appreciation as a part of my being. It's no wonder I try to live as green a life as possible - I don't go to the extreme, but I do try to do my part and encourage others (family and friends) to do the same - reduce consumption (step 1), reuse items when possible (step 2), and recycle those you can't (step 3). I've found it very difficult here to recycle items I normally would back home - yogurt containers, cereal boxes, takeout containers. I am trying to be a bit more creative than I would be at home. I finished a small jar of pesto sauce a few days ago, and after cleaning it out (which took a while, man, there is a lot of oil in pesto sauce!), I decided to use it as a tzedakh box, to collect my spare change while I'm here. I am also recycling glass bottles (beer, wine, soda, etc.) at the local supermarket, because first of all it is recycled material, and second of all, each bottle is worth 30 agurot (kind of like Israeli cents) which is the same concept as the 5 cent bottle deposit in the US. So I plan to collect bottles throughout the rest of my time here, bring them for agurot exchange, and that money will go to tzedakah/charity at some point. Also trying to reuse as much paper as possible so I don't have to buy more or waste what we already have. Doing my best to save water too - when I wash my dishes now, I soap up the sponge and turn off the faucet. Yeah my hands get soapy, but who cares? It's clean! After everything is soapy I rinse it all at once, instead of having the water running the whole time.
All these messages from the films are still infiltrating my brain and it'll probably be with me a long time before I can let them go - they are too important to me. I'm doing my best to do my part to help save the world, and I hope others choose to join the team!
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