Written by Nic Wistreich | 20 August 2009 | in news - Documentary

Vanishing of the Bees released in October, backed with Co-Op commitments for change

The rise of socially focused documentaries since the success of Gore and Moore has been partly supported by UK doc distributor DogWoof - who released the Age of Stupid, Black Gold, Burma VJ and now Vanishing of the Bees. Partnering on these last two films with the UK's ethically focussed Co-Op group - the world's largest consumer-owned business - DogWoof is now moving beyond releasing films which campaign for change, to being involved in that change itself.

The honeybee is responsible for pollinating one third of our food. This contributes approximately £200 million per year to the UK economy. Honeybees are dying in their millions and no-one knows why.  In the UK around one third of all hives were lost in the winter of 2008.

Vanishing of the Bees explores the mysterious collapse of the bee population across the planet and its greater message about mankind’s relationship with the natural world. But the release is set not only to increase awareness and understanding of the issue, but as a means to address the problem itself.  Ahead of the October release of the film, the Co-Op has published a ten point 'Plan Bee', committing to activity ranging from researching colony collapse and banning certain pesticides in farming (the Co-Op is the UK's largest farmer) to giving 300,000 free wildflower seed mixes to members and training beekeepers (full list is below).

Following the success of Burma VJ which opened in cinemas on 17th July, Vanishing of the Bees is the second title to be released by The Co-operative and Dogwoof, whose partnership was announced at Cannes earlier this year to help socially conscious films reach mainstream cinema audiences. It follows a trend seen across the documentary sector where film releases are tied into wider campaigning platforms, such as Age of Stupid's Not Stupid campaign, backed by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and fishing decline documentary End of the Line which partnered with Waitrose as well as running a campaign which saw the likes of Pret a Manger and Gordon Ramsey take endangered fish of their menus.

Conflicting opinions and heated controversy abounds surrounding the cause behind the phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Is it a virus at the heart of this ecological disaster? Is it parasites or pesticides? WiFi or mobile signals? Or is it due to a symptom of changes in agricultural practice? The film explores the issue with the help of beekeepers, scientists and policymakers and attempts to unravel the numerous theories behind the mysterious cause of CCD and its devastating impact on the population of the honeybee.

The film celebrates the ancient relationship between humans and bees whilst highlighting mankind’s reliance on the honeybee as the cornerstone of modern agriculture. For thousands of years right through to the 'hive mind' of the internet, bees and their hexagonal hives have served as symbols of unity, industriousness and what it means to work for the greater good.

Written by Nic Wistreich | 08 August 2009 | in people - documentary

As the Yes Men - the thinking-person's Sacha Baron Cohen - see their latest film released in the UK, Netribution sneaks its way into a secretive underground political cell known only as 'Soho House' to find them out and learn more.

The Independent's Johann Hari recently asked the question: "when you are just one person sitting on a warming planet – when you see economies collapsing, wars raging, and reasons for fear on every corner – how should you react? What can you do?". Many of us, he argued, settle for defiant pessimism: "I can't make any difference. It's all going to happen, whatever I do. The political conversation.. has nothing to do with me anyway", leading us to buy a bigger lock for our door, distrust our neighbours and not go out much, other than to occasionally let rip and collapse in a drunken mess on Latvian stag weekends.

I was fortunate enough to put the question to the Yes Men - who seem to have taken the crown of accessible yet uncompromising political satire - when I met them in London a few weeks ago ahead of the release of the pant-shittingly hilarious The Yes Men Fix the World - winner of the Audience award at Berlin, and 'best documentary of the year' according to the New Scientist. Andy Bichlbaum explained that they simply "do things that are fun". Pessimism is avoided, he said, "if you do what you are drawn to and think it can have a positive effect, if you do want you want to do and it's enjoyable. The despair comes from not doing anything and just sitting there and letting things happen."

Indeed it was frustration with the status quo which led them into Yes-ing the first place: "I started it more or less when I was in college and there was a certain frustration." says Andy. "It could seem pointless to be in a march, while [this was] something that could give me more satisfaction, that we had more fun doing."

Still not funded to prank all year round (wot no Channel 4 series?), the pair hold down day jobs as University lecturers while jetting around the world pretending to be people that they aren't. Few by now will have missed the infamous stunt where Bichlbaum was invited on to BBC News 24 as a representative of Dow Chemical, and proceded to do the one thing the owner of the chemical plant behind the disaster which has killed an estimated 25,000 people and disabled many more has never done - and apologise unreservedly for the disaster, promising to shut the plant and pay out some $12bn in compensation and clean-up (25 years on, the ground water there is still is toxic, and litigation continues). Dow's stock price collapsed by some $2bn before the stunt was revealed.

The Yes Men Fix the World, after a slightly awkward start, gallops into one of the funniest documentaries I've seen in years that had me both in tears, as the pair visited Bhopal today; and stitches, as executives at a VIP annual petrochemical luncheon learn that the candles they are holding are made from the flesh of an Exxon janitor, as part of a cunning plan to recycle climate chaos casualties into a fuel source. The film takes us behind the scenes of the pair's thinking, planning and stunts - with few areas avoiding their attention. We see them share a stage with Mayor Nagin in New Orleans where post-disaster relief has become mass-privatisation, with only four state schools left in the entire city; uncover Halliburton's executive protection survival suit; and - in one of their most touching stunts - handed out 80,000 alternative 'good news' copies of the New York Times, declaring peace in Iraq, a restructure of the economy and a new maximum wage law (PDF). With more stunts planned in the run up to Copenhagen, the men don't seem to sleep - indeed for the film's release in the UK, the pair handed out beautifully branded B'EauPal water in Soho, and at the Dow offices:

What seems remarkable - besides their  ability to get away with these things - is the balance between focusing on local issues and the bigger picture, which is summed up by Andy as the point that "we've entrusted our destiny to this crazy ideology [consumerism] that has now gone bankrupt and it's obvious it's gone bankrupt. But we really need to sever our ties with it." It's a message no longer exclusive to radicals and the far left - taking centre stage from Franny Armstrong's Age of Stupid to Douglas Rushkoff's Life Inc to Annie Leonards' brilliantly concise and informative 20-minute Creative Commons short The Story of Stuff (which taught me that every bin bag of rubbish in my house is matched with 70 bags of rubbish created in the production of that waste - and that 99% of goods Americans buy will be binned within six months). In short, as Leonard says, "you cannot run a linear system (of production and consumption) on a finite planet indefinitely". Even Disney seems to agree, with Wall*E and its accompanying website, being perhaps the most grimly disturbing illustration out of any of them of the consequences of business as usual, of a society built first and foremost around consumerism, greed and short term, unsustainable thinking.

So, are these guys the answer? Heroic cultural leaders such as Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano, Banksy and Kalle Lasn, Armstrong and Rushkoff, Mark Thomas and Michael Moore, Colbert and Stewart - sticking the finger up to Goliath as they press for the change we want but don't know how to get, while cracking some good jokes?

Actually, this is the second bad response to the problems of the world Hari identified in his article, giving our leaders and cultural figures sole responsibility for change, investing in them superhuman expectations to make up for the rot that we all see and sigh for, while letting us once more sit back and put our feet up, trusting that Obama or the Yes Men will sort it out. It's just as dangerous as apathy:

"Both these moods leave you – the ordinary citizen – inert. All you can do is focus on your own personal life and wait, for disaster or salvation. But these twin dispositions leave out the real option that is waiting for you. It is the only one that has ever delivered political change in the past, and it is the only one that will pull us out of the ditch now. It is where ordinary individual citizens – you – come together and raise their voices and offer solutions of their own."

This echoes the Yes Men's message, as Mike explains: "it's only by individual action that things change. There's not driving a car, that kind of thing, then there's also putting pressure on corporations and the government to change. Specifically putting pressure on our elected leaders to make sure that they have the mandate to pass the laws that we hope to see at Copenhagen. There's tons of organisations here that are doing it, from the more radical ones like Plane Stupid, to groups like Friends of the Earth."

And if they wanted to follow in the Yes Men's shoes, any advice? "It's not very hard, that's what I'd say to begin with. It's not rocket science" explained Andy. "You can watch our movie, figure out how we do it and go and do it. It's one technique amongst many for getting the message out there. And for supporting a big movement that's making change."

To help this further, the Yes Men have created a website that both explains how they do it, gives ideas, and encourages groups to mobilise around specific issues. At challenge.theyesmen.org you can sign up to stunts - from a campaign against the targetted recruitment of ethnic minorities and the ultra-poor for the military, to the Raging Grannies Action League for US health care reform.

Johann Hari argues it's actions such as these that move civilisation forward, and that as a species we depend on such movements:

"Far from being some dreamy call to kumbaya, collective political action is the single biggest reason your life is incalculably better than that of your great-grandparents. When people first called for equality for women, when people first started to conduct scientific experiments, when people first suggested paid weekends and holidays for ordinary workers, they were greeted by the same glib pessimism we hear today. It'll never happen! What can we do?...

Who was the leader of feminism? Who was the leader of scientific progress? Who was the leader of workers' rights? Sure, there were inspirational individuals along the way. But they happened as a result of millions of ordinary people demanding it, and never giving up. If we had waited for leaders to spontaneously see the light, we would be waiting still."

Or as Bilchbaum says, "Now that the world is in great danger, we really have to figure this out. It's a great moment."

The Yes Men Fix the World is now on general release in the UK, and will feature a live satellite screening and event beamed from the Sheffield Showroom on Tuesday, August 11th. More information from their website and after the link below. It is released in the US from October 17th.

Posters from the Yes Men Poster design contest.

Written by Suchandrika Chakrabarti | 03 August 2009

The Closing Night Gala of The Times BFI 53^rd London Film Festival will be the World Premiere of Ecosse Films' NOWHERE BOY, the highly anticipated debut feature from British artist Sam Taylor-Wood.

Imagine John Lennon's childhood... Liverpool 1955: a smart and troubled fifteen year-old is hungry for experience. In a family full of secrets, two incredible women clash over John. Mimi, the buttoned-up aunt who raised him and Julia, the prodigal mother. Yearning for a normal family, John escapes into rock n' roll. His fledgling genius finds a kindred spirit in the teenage Paul McCartney. Just as John begins his new life, tragedy strikes. But a resilient young man finds his voice - and an icon explodes into the world.

Written by Suchandrika Chakrabarti | 28 July 2009 | in news - Festivals

The Times BFI London Film Festival is proud to announce that this year's Festival will open on Wednesday 14 October with the world premiere of Fantastic Mr. Fox, from visionary director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenebaums, The Darjeeling Limited).

Anderson's first animated film, which he co-wrote with Noah Baumbach, uses classic handmade stop motion techniques to tell the story of the best selling children's book by British author Roald Dahl (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and James and the Giant Peach). The film features the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wally Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jarvis Cocker and Helen McCrory. It is produced by Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin and Allison Abbate.

Written by Laurence Boyce | 25 July 2009 | in reviews - Special Edition

It’s looking like a pretty quiet summer for blockbusters. Harry Potter has caused a stir but seems somehow slight, Transformers 2 has distinguished itself by being absolutely diabolical and Star Trek seems like ages ago. So, if you’re not fancying your local multiplex then Special Edition # 31 would seem to be the perfect option for all your film watching needs. Laurence Boyce leads you through superhero angst on the big and small screen, a bit of comedy for when the sunshine isn’t lifting your mood and much more in-between.

Written by JJ Kim | 22 July 2009 | in people - documentary

Burma VJ has been met with very positive reviews in the UK following its release last week, with a 94% Rotten Tomatoes rating, but what do the Burmese depicted in the film make of it?

In his first contribution to Netribution, JJ Kim travelled to the heart of the pro-democracy movement in Thailand to watch the film with Khine Wai Zaw - who was involved the Saffron Uprising of 2007 - and hear his story. It's a fascinating insight into the benefit of social-documentaries from someone who grew up within the heart of the former British colony under the rule of the Junta.

It is Friday 9th July 2009. With the award winning “Burma VJ” released in British cinemas, many people get their first glimpse of the Saffron Revolution (2007) - the most comprehensively documented of many horror stories from Burma’s near half-century under oppressive military rule. Meanwhile, it is business as usual for the many organisations working in Burma’s neighbouring countries – in safety – to bring democracy back to the world’s second most corrupt country (Transparency International 2008).

The heart of the Burmese pro-democracy movement is in Mae Sot, Tak Province, Thailand, on the Burmese border, a six-hour bus-ride from Chiang Mai, where much of Burma VJ was produced and even directed remotely. A transient town - with many Burmese migrant workers and Non-Governmental Organisations of all kinds - Mae Sot is home to many politicians, educators, religious leaders and activists who have been forced into exile. However, far from running away from their pasts, many have set up organisations to support those suffering in Burma and inform the world of the extreme injustices inflicted on civilians by the nation’s totalitarian military regime.

One such organisation, is the All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress (AASYC), a largely political group based in both Thailand and Bangladesh. The AASYC office – walls adorned with banners saying “Free Arakan” and “SPDC out” (referring to the regime’s official name – The State Peace and Development Council) - is where I met with Khine Wai Zaw, to discuss his participation in the Saffron Revolution and  watch the film, Burma VJ.

Khine Wai Zaw, as he has made himself known since leaving Burma in December 2007, grew up in Mrauk-U, an ancient city in Arakan State, an area colonised by the Burmese in 1784. He had told me many times before about life growing up under martial law – in constant fear of surveillance. “In my hometown we saw soldiers everyday,” he began hesitantly. ”In groups of at least 4 with rifles or M16 machine guns. Sometimes, they would go to the market and buy things but pay very little or go to traditional local events so we used to fight them. They would come back the next day with more military so many of my brothers had to leave the city and now they can never go home because the soldiers are looking for them.

However, these things are rarely talked about in Burma – out of pure fear of incarceration or worse. Military intelligence officials in civilian clothing are on every corner, in work places and in every teashop, eagerly seeking a chance to report a “traitor” to their superiors, condemning them to imprisonment, torture or even murder for expressing their opinions. “In Yangon, we had to discuss politics very slowly and carefully because our brothers were involved in underground political activities - we would be watched all the time and many brothers had to leave.”

“The soldiers began to shoot and in the same moment many people that we had been protesting with all day turned on us and started beating us; it became apparent that these people were also working for the SPDC... I saw many girls falling – they were very afraid! That was the last day I protested.”
Khine Wai Zaw

Burma VJ tells the story of the Saffron Revolution of 2007, the first nationwide uprising in Burma for 19 years. The revolt was brought to a sudden halt when over a hundred civilians, including monks and students were shot dead and far more were detained without trial.

The roots of the uprising

On the 15th September 2007, 20 year-old Khine Wai Zaw could tell something was different as he prepared for the two-day journey to Yangon (Rangoon), where he would stay with his Aunt and Uncle. That day, Khine Wai Zaw saw something he’d never seen before: monks and other civilians demonstrating against the government, openly talking to crowds about political ideals such as democracy and human rights.  “I had never seen protests before. Many people had closed their shops and restaurants. Many policemen and soldiers were talking on their phones and many monks were chanting and marching. I was excited and a little scared. I had goose-bumps”

By the 25th of September, millions were mobilised across the country- monks, teachers, writers, students and housewives alike were marching through the streets calling for a justice that they barely understood. “I didn’t know much about democracy at that time but I knew that I wanted to change our system because everyday I faced many difficulties. In every street in Yangon there were many prostitutes, many beggars and many soldiers walking and in vehicles.“

At first many watched the monks from the sidelines, apprehensive to join in. Scenes from Burma VJ show a march through downtown Yangon while thousands watch from their windows cheering and clapping from their windows. “They were afraid. Even though they were clapping their hands, they were afraid. I think one thousand people were watching us and then they joined us slowly, slowly. “ Khine Wai Zaw recalls from another part of town where he joined in the demonstration.

Whilst watching the film with Khine Wai Zaw and three young Arakanese girls - the atmosphere was infectious. Excited murmurs quickly turned into laughter and cheers from the AASYC office while the girls saw sights they had never imagined: literally thousands of civilians defying the system and expressing their anti-military sentiments loud and proud.

But the atmosphere quickly changed once the first signs of violence came to the screen. (continued...)

Written by Nic Wistreich | 08 July 2009 | in news - Censorship

The first feature film to ever be screened at Number 10, in an event set-up by Sarah Brown on Aung San Suu's birthday, and the first feature from the Co-Op Group's new partnership with distributor DogWoof - Burma VJ is a guerilla documnetary made up of footage smuggled out of Myanmar (Burma) by video journalists in the country (and is a great example of open video's relationship with traditional film):

"Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Anders Østergaard, the award winning, powerful and shocking documentary provides a unique glimpse into life on the streets of Burma’s capital – Rangoon. The vast majority of the film consists of illegal footage using concealed cameras. Burma VJ, reveals this hidden world, seen through the eyes of the undercover VJs (Video Journalists) who document everyday life under a military regime.

Filmed over a number of days, the VJs by chance end up recording the appalling treatment of the Burmese citizens and monks – which caused a global uproar, after their peaceful protests resulted in violent opposition by their government.

The Burmese VJs risk torture, imprisonment and even death in their quest to report honestly what is going on in their closed country. The material in this film has been made possible through illegal smuggling and broadcast to international media (whom the government accuses of lying) and into Burma via satellite. Paul Monaghan, Head of Social Goals and Sustainability, explains The Co-operative’s motivation for supporting this film:

“People put their lives on the line to get this footage out of Burma in the hope that the world would take notice. News stories come and go, but the oppression in Burma is as bad as anywhere on the planet, and we mustn’t turn a blind eye”.

The film not only exposes the threat the government faces from the camera wielding VJs but also the day-to-day hardships faced by the Burmese.

Independent film distributor Dogwoof has teamed up with The Co-operative to release Burma VJ in the UK.

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Burma VJ  will be previewed nationwide at the Saffron Premiere on 14 July and released on 17 July  by Dogwoof and The Co-operative.

The Co-operative has been trying to keep Burma in the public eye for a number of years. Since 2000, The Co-operative Bank has declined to provide financial services to any company with a significant presence in Burma. In 2005, The Co-operative Financial Services supported the Burma Campaign UK in a campaign that argued the case for the withdrawal from Burma of Total. The Co-operative Travel has also delisted the country as a tourist destination.

(This article was based on a press release from Substance PR with minimal editing)

Written by Nic Wistreich | 06 July 2009 | in guides - Open Video

Two and a half weeks may be a little late to begin writing up the Open Video Conference, but then my first essay, penned in the few days after, discussed Pirate Bay at some length and even mentioned Michael Jackson and Brian Newman and so is now largely irrelevant. But with our new Tweeting Netwitbutions, perhaps this is the time to sign up fully for the more anti-knee-jerk Slow Blog Movement - if something's going to sit in Google's cache until the end of time, I suppose it's worth thinking about first. (Nothing to do with procrastination..)

So over this and the next couple of write-ups I'd like to introduce to those new to it the thinking behind Open Video, before looking at some of the technologies and ideas that were creating a big buzz and may go on to define the web of tomorrow, before trying to picture the long term scenario - for both technology and film - in light of some of the major changes that are coming in the next year (and the more interesting 'shifts' such as Pirate Bay's decision that, after all, they would like to be paid for their labour).

The first big realisation for me and perhaps the most important point for the (legacy) film world is that we're just one pane of the huge stained glass window that is 'open video'. It's more like the novel's relationship to the printing press; one application from as many as there are uses for the printed word. Also worth understanding is that the passionate vigour from the movement's prime movers is not the same as the similarly passionate pro-pirate movement, but rather folks who believe that technology must never stand in the way from any of us expressing ourselves with video. Back-dropped against the demos and mass communications of Iran the mood was generally one of somber valediction – here was proof that decentralised peer-generated media was capable of doing what no news organisation was able to do, while emphasisng the importance of keeping these tools on open standards and formats.

Splitting decentralised video, from which open video is born, into legitimate and non-legitimate activity we see on the one side massive (and inspiring) activity - including video in learning and education, reportage of human rights abuses, public archives, and free open source video editors, codecs and file formats. On the other side - the area of copyright & patent infringement - we see a history where the 'pirate' activity has gradually become absorbed by the mainstream. The independent rebels who refused to pay Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company license fees headed west to California to avoid being fined and included William Fox (who later founded 20th Century Fox), Carl Laemmle (one of the founders of Universal Pictures) and Adolph Zukor (whose company became Paramount Pictures). MP3.com, Napster and now Pirate Bay have all been acquired by legitimate businesses, while the steps from Napster to Spotify are not really so great. Even former studio boss Lord Puttnam recognised the sector's value in certain conditions, during his recent keynote in Edinburgh - it was pirate copies of The Killing Fields circulating the Ukraine in the late 80s, which in part helped educate against mass violence and prevent civil war, according to Ukraine's President Yushchenko. And with seats in the European Parliament, the pirate movement is inching closer to the mainstream, albeit on the back of a technology far more powerful than anything DVD street sellers or home bootleggers ever had at their disposal - which is they key point: ultimately Torrents and their successors are a very powerful, arguably unstopable, way to share pirate material. They also are a cost-free way for content owners to distribute their work.

If these two green and red worlds above could be polaraised as acceptable and inacceptable to the film industry and the majority of copyright holders - in the middle comes the murky world of creative re-use. Much of it technically illegal, yet almost all of it is the creation of new art and culture, the modern-day equivalent of basing Star Wars on a Kurosawa film or the Da Vinci Code on The Templar Revelation. More to the point, much of it is potentially profitable: as is often pointed out, had DRM been widespread in the early 80s, Hip Hop music just might not have happened, preventing a sector worth billions.

While the copyright industry has long legislated against this middle ground, in a peer-generated media space, such re-use may soon outnumber original content - how many more people must have seen remixes to Hitler's speach in DownFall than the original film? Indeed increasing numbers of copyright owners who find infringing derivative works of theirs on YouTube agree to leave it up so they can sell adverts against it. The longer the media industry and copyright owners oppose open creative re-use, the more it pushes next generation creatives, the lifeblood of the creative world, to the area of full infringement -  and the more power it devolves to the new oligarchs - tech companies, ISPs and web services who will profit regardless of the origin, legality or quality of content (and whose collective size is so much bigger than the film industry that they will always be able to find legislative and mainstream support). To date the only music torrent I've  downloaded was DJ BC's Wu Orleans - a mashup of the Wu Tang Clan and old New Orleans Soul which can't be bought anywhere, like Dangermouse's Gray Album. My interest in Creative Commons and opposition to DRM only came in 2003 when I got into the VJ world and Clip-Hop. Most VJs I know have nothing against sharing earnings - if and when they get any - with copyright owners provided it was a reasonable price and easy to do - at present the use of a tiny clip from Star Wars or An Inconvenient Truth may take a VJ weeks to clear and cost ten times more than they'd get paid for a night's work.

So the only DRM-free and creative-reuse space for films at present is mainly illegal. At the same time much of the Torrent sector seems to care little about their ability to destroy an art form. As one person told me at the conference in response to my exclamations that indie and art film could die if a payment solution wasn't found: 'that's kind of like moaning about being in the horse and cart business after the Model T Ford came out'. When I asked him what his favourite films were he admitted he didn't really like watching them, but was building a new web video platform nevertheless

Many in the tech community use the example of Bill Gate’s infamous arguments in the late 80s saying that there was no financial model for software based around its free distribution. He was wrong on a significant scale, at the loss of Microsoft and benefit of Linux, Apache, Firefox, PHP et al; yet simply because film can also be described in binary does not mean that the business of film production is the same as writing software. For one thing your average indie filmmaker is probably already working for free on the bulk of theirs' and their friends' films, yet they can't supplement this with $500 a day writing code or doing consultancy, like the open source sector. Payment for them is not about getting rich, but paying off the second mortgage they took out on their house for the film. For another, unlike music and books, real-world non-piratable activity (theatrical) is rarely profitable and very hard for small operators to get into, as I've long been saying here.

But this debate is unlikely to be resolved soon, and I only repeat it now because a number of emerging factors I hope to cover soon (once I understand all the issues) suggest that the train may already have left. So as the film and web worlds try to communicate with each other, the tech sector urgently needs to recognise the danger of a world where the only feature films are either zero budget or funded by major brands, while the film sector should re-appraise the value of fair and creative re-use at a time when it's getting harder than ever to get attention for what you do. With all thats on the horizon, every 'fan, friend and follower' is going to be needed, and some new revenue streams may emerge in the process, which also wouldn't be a bad thing.