UNE’s Nonviolence Film Festival is an annual festival of documentaries about nonviolent campaigns around the world, presented by Peace Studies. This year’s festival features four outstanding contemporary films, and one classic from 2003 – ‘Wildness’. The lunchtime films are all free and open to the public. The festival runs from Monday 9 May to Friday 13 May in the Oorala Centre at UNE.
- MONDAY 1pm 78mins The festival begins with ‘Granny Power’, a film about the silly but also serious Raging Grannies, an organisation of funny, creative, courageous and hip older women all over the world who use song and satire to protest injustice, demonstrate against war, and promote environmental awareness.
- TUESDAY 1pm 104mins ‘The Square’ is an award-winning documentary about change and the power of people. A compelling inside look at the cascading series of revolutions and counterrevolutions that have shaken Egypt since the beginning of 2011, it is ‘elegantly shot and structured, but infused with rough, spontaneous energy; global in its consciousness but intimate in its approach; carefully pitched but emotionally wrenching; deeply troubling but ultimately exhilarating.’
- WEDNESDAY 1pm 110mins ‘How to Change the World’ is a moving and inspirational film about the rise of Greenpeace. It uses rare archival footage to chart the birth of the modern environmental movement, exploring how Greenpeace developed from a small group of idealistic environmentalists into a sophisticated protest movement known for their use of vivid images – such as a dinghy blocking the path of whaling ship. Their footage richly evokes not only the dramatic actions they undertook, but their friendships and conflicts, dilemmas and decisions – a sometimes crazy mix of psychedelia and politics, science and theatre.
- THURSDAY 1pm 104mins ‘Heritage Fight’ documents a successful battle in which Aboriginal people and conservationists worked hand in hand to protect the pristine waters, land and cultural and archaeological heritage of the Kimberley wilderness from a proposed development involving one of the largest liquified natural gas plants in the world.
- FRIDAY 1pm 56mins ‘Wildness’ is an international award-winning tribute to the work of two outstanding Tasmanian wilderness photographers, Peter Dombrovskis and Olegas Truchanas, whose images helped to save much of Tasmania’s wild country from inappropriate development. The film is part of the UNE Symposium: ‘Wilderness – 40 Years and 40,000 Years’.
For further information, contact Dr Marty Branagan, Convenor of Peace Studies, {local land line}3 3951.
