GREEN has now won top awards from the two most prestigious wildlife film festivals in the world.
Golden Panda Award – Wildscreen 2010
Grand Teton Award – Jackson Hole International Wildlife Film Festival 2009
See what the buzz is about, watch entire film above.
Her name is GREEN, she is alone in a world that doesn’t belong to her. She is a female orangutan, victim of deforestation and resource exploitation. This film is an emotional journey with GREEN’s final days. With no narration, it is a visual ride presenting the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations, the choking haze created by rainforest fires and the tragic end of rainforest biodiversity. We watch the effects of consumerism and are faced with our personal accountability in the loss of the world’s rainforest treasures.
STUDY GUIDE:
Studying Green is a series of short essays in response to the film. They have been written by a variety of University lecturers who all attended the 2010 WildScreen film festival where GREEN won its coveted Golden Panda award and where the film’s creator, Patrick Rouxel, presented and talked about the film.
CREDITS:
Produced, Directed, Filmed and Edited by: Patrick Rouxel
48 minutes
No narration
16:9
PAL and NTSC DVDs available for your screenings
BIO: Born in 1966, Patrick Rouxel is half Swedesh, half French. He grew up in Malaysia and Singapore, speaks French, English and a bit of Indonesian. After working for more then 10 years in digital special effects for feature films, he changed tracks to freelance as a filmmaker for environmental conservation in 2003. For the last few years, Patrick has worked as a cameraman or film director for NGOs like Global Witness, Greenpeace and WWF in Indonesia and Africa. He also produces his own films dedicated to the protection of the tropical rainforests. GREEN is one of a trilogy: documenting through creative storrytelling rainforest destruction in Indonesia, Brazil and the Congo.
AWARDS:
Wildscreen 2010 — Golden Panda Award.
Jackson Hole International Wildlife Film Festival 2009 — USA
Best of Festival: Grand Teton Award
Best Conservation Film
Durango Film Festival 2009 — USA
Best short documentary
Best audience buzz
International Wildlife Film Festival 2009 – USA
Sapphire award, second place of Festival
Best Sound design
Best Editing
Best Conservation and Environmental Issue
Festival Albert 2009 – France
Grand Prix
Meilleur scenario
Festival International du Film Nature et Environnement 2009 (FRAPNA) – FRANCE
Hérisson de Bronze
Bourges International Ecological Film Festival, 2009 (France)
Meilleure fiction et prix Ushuaïa TV
REVIEWS:
by The Australian Orangutan Project
The film “Green”, is a 48 min long documentary on the Indonesian rainforest, deforestation and orangutan extinction. It is a silent film (without narration, but with music) which addresses itself both to the Indonesians and the consumers of wood/paper/palm oil around the world.
This important documentary was filmed in the fast disappearing Indonesian rainforest and is not narrated, however, its message is clear and frightening. The home of the Orangutan and many other wildlife species in Indonesia is being decimated at an alarming rate by consumer need and greed.
The film features the widespread practice of ‘slash and burn’ to clear the lush rainforest to make way for extensive palm oil plantations which we, the consumer, support in our demand for our favourite foods, magazines, cosmetics, and, increasingly, biofuel. The practice has also seen Indonesia move into third place behind the US and China with regard to carbon emissions due to the uncovering of peat soil which has lain, undisturbed, below the tropical rainforest for centuries. The film exposes the illegal pet trade that thrives in Indonesia and the sick, despairing lives of those Orangutan who spend years, often all their lives, locked in small cages, suffering, alone.
The story thread follows the fate of a female Orangutan who has been captured and brought in because her forest home has been decimated. She is one of the lucky ones – most are slaughtered without mercy when caught. Her fate though, is not a happy one, as her trauma at the hands of man is too great. Your heart will break with resounding pity, but it is even more sobering to know that she is only one of hundreds every week who will suffer a similar fate.
Make sure everyone you know watches this documentary. We owe it to our friends, the gentle Orangutan, we owe it to our planet, and we owe it to ourselves so that we can learn from it.
