Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival

In the mid-19th century, Mount Aiguoal in southern France was bare rock. This is the story of two men who made it green again - George Fabre, a Guard with the French military, and Charles Flahault, a botanist. The pair worked for 30 years, testing new species, lobbying local farmers, and battling war, harsh weather and resistance from superiors to achieve their dream of reforestation. Like Frederic Back's The Man Who Planted Trees, their story is a reminder that the modern environmental movement's dreams are not exclusive to today, but rather part of a long and wide-ranging history of conscious stewardship on behalf of nature. If, during his history, humans have succeeded in turning forests into deserts, the narrator tells us, they has rarely succeeded in doing the reverse. This film gives us two pioneers who knew it was possible, and why it was necessary.

The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning dives straight into the epicentre of the climate change crisis – Antarctica! This documentary explores first-hand the environmental challenges facing this complex frozen continent and, by extension, the world through a series of interviews from polar experts and research scientists around the world as well as rare wildlife footage. The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning addresses the new phenomenon of suicide among penguins, the imminent rise of the world’s sea level due to ice melting and illustrates the stunning new vegetation growing in the world’s largest desert. This film is a hands-on exploration of the continent, its wildlife and the courageous individuals who have given up the comforts of civilization in order to save it. This is…The Antarctica Challenge.

In the rural areas of Niger, most wells are dug the traditional way: with men lowered deep into the ground on a rudimentary rope harness. This documentary takes you to the center of the earth with them. Amani Mahamane is a Master Well-digger. He has dug 77 wells, his father 90 wells, and his grandfather 80. It is hard to dig here because of the sand and the depth required to find water. His job is to use animistic rituals to find a good well site and protect his workers from harm. It is these labourers that must dig until they find water, sometimes more than 130 metres beneath the sands. Director Ingrid Patetta captures their claustrophobic descent into the earth, the customary know-how of the Master Well-digger and the impact of the scarcity of water on communities of nomadic cattle breeders.

Modernization has reached the tropical forests of South Cameroon, where the Bagyeli pygmies struggle to maintain their traditions while adapting to new ways of life. With remarkable access, the filmmakers watch the Bagyeli people as they hunt, learn, sing, start businesses, manage conflicts with neighbouring tribes, and deal with the changes in their environment. The film focuses on three central characters: Angeline, a fiercely determined young woman; Marcelline, who works as a cook at the local hostel; and Pascal, the first Bagyeli mechanic. When the World Bank comes, on the heels of a massive EXXON oil pipeline, and introduces AIDS screening to the Bagyeli community, the pygmies find themselves pitted against the forces of global bureaucracy, in a fight to maintain their very existence. This is an urgent and compelling documentary on a unique culture in crisis.

We meet Julie foraging for fresh chestnuts high in a tree with pink oven mitts to protect herself from the sting. Her bible is a colourful cookbook of pasted recipes that she consults religiously to combine the flavours found in her village with produce from her garden and greenhouse. Working with her mother Monique to run a small restaurant for a charming collection of local characters, her kitchen is a rich cinematic experience of local and wild gourmet food prepared by love until her father, Simon, returns as part of a group of activists trying to save a local forest. The small town begins to whisper as pages of the magic cookbook appear in odd places and Julie's life of sweet basil begins to dissolve into the bitterness of stinging nettles. This elegant drama continues to stir and thicken the plot to a satisfying ending you won't want to miss.

Simultaneous hunts occur every year in the Antarctic Ocean. A Japanese mother ship, The Nisshin Maru, uses sighting and catcher boats to hunt and kill whales under the guise of scientific research while the Greenpeace boat, Rainbow Warrior, and the Sea Shepherd's, Esperanza jostle for position to stop the Japanese fleet. UK Filmmaker Morgan Matthews climbed on board the Rainbow Warrior expecting intense drama on the high seas, and he got it, just not with the adversary he expected. For two weeks, the vessel searches the frigid water for the Nisshin Maru. Prepared to die for the cause, the crew instead must search for purpose deep inside themselves when all they are seeing is ice burgs. In the end, they are confronted with an unexpected presence that will test their environmental ambitions and force them to come to terms with their humanity.

Something is stirring in the clear waters of the mountain stream - and it's not happy. This lithe, menacing creature has both the power of nature and the moves of Bruce Lee on its side, in its battle against those who take the earth for granted. Beautiful choreography and design make this dance-driven tale a stunning piece of short cinema.

Imagine cramming 128 million people onto an island the size of Montana – you would be pretty close to replicating the density of Japan. Not surprisingly, space is at a premium and ergonomic design is next to godliness. Yet, even in Tokyo, the pinnacle of this figurative “can of sardines,” people of all ages still make room for a little bit of wilderness. It is only fitting that they have become captivated by nature’s most efficient invention in space, design and function – insects. Sold live in vending machines and department stores; plastic replicas included as prizes in the equivalent of a McDonald’s Happy Meal; the subject of the No.1 videogame MushiKing; and from the smallest backyard to the top of Mt. Fuji, insects inspire an enthusiasm in Japan seen nowhere else in this world. “Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo” explores the mystery of why Japan developed this unique enriching social relationship with insects. Working backward like a detective story, the film unlocks the mystery behind Japan’s love affair with insects. First stop is modern Japan where a single beetle recently sold for $90,000. From there we are transported to the Edo period and the consequent explosion of nature in art and war. Peering back to the early 1800s, the first cricket selling business and the development of haiku and other forms of insect literature are revealed. The historical adventure travels all the way back to the 8th century and the stories of Emperor Jimmu who named Japan the “Isle of the Dragonflies.” Along the way the film takes side trips to Zen temples and Buddhist Shrines, nature preserves and art museums in its quest for the inspirations that sent Japan in this direction while other cultures hurtled off towards an almost universal and profound fear of insects. Interspersed with the philosophies of one of Japan’s best-selling authors and anatomist, Dr. Takeshi Yoro, and scattered with poetry and art from Japan’s history, this film becomes about much more than insects. The film quietly challenges the viewer to observe the world from an uncommon perspective that will shift the familiar to the fantastic and just might change not only the way we think about bugs, but the way we think about life.

In a village inhabited by the Miao minority culture in China's Ghuizhou province, a young boy named Jia Xiangma receives a letter from his father, who is in Beijing working on the Bird's Nest. His friends think it must be a home for birds, but Xiangma knows it's for the Olympic Games - and decides to go to Beijing to prove it. His quest combines elements of a fish-out-of-water tale with reflections on the changing face of China, in a heartwarming story that heartily entertains as it spotlights the predicament faced by migrant workers and their families. As a portrait of a cultural minority in China, it also shows the rich diversity of a country often assumed to be culturally homogenous. Finally, the young protagonist, played by Gun Shengdiu, is a plucky hero in the tradition of Jim Hawkins or Oliver Twist - a determined youngster who's impossible not to root for.