Three films, three different forms of civil defiance, rebellion and resistance. All over the world, people are fighting back to protect the land, the air, our future. These are examples that encourage us.
It is often young people who are the driving force in opposing the prevailing conditions. And often they are women, like the two protagonists in the film ONCE UPON A TIME IN A FOREST by Virpi Suutari. They are concerned with preserving the forests in Finland, which are seen as an eternally renewable resource and exploited by the forest industry. At the forefront of a movement, they oppose the machines. They know that their form of civil disobedience can have consequences.
In western Canada, two strong women are also on the front line of a movement opposing the Canadian government’s plans. Their fight against the construction of a pipeline highway through their ancestral territory has been going on for over ten years. Filmmakers have been following this struggle just as long. The result is a unique document of a courageous rebellion that has hardly been noticed in Europe. The title of the film YINTAH means land in the language of the Wet’suwet’en.
A third example is the film THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MY DAD. The deteriorating state of the planet and the pollution of the environment are reason enough for a committed scientist not to let up in his fight for a better world.
