SADHANA FOREST, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23rd

We’re having an ecofilm marathon to celebrate the 9th birthday of Sadhana Forest. Please refer to SADHANA FOREST 9TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS for workshops and other activities happening during the day. We will be operating a free bus service from Solar Kitchen for you to come to Sadhana Forest and get back

(the bus schedule is given below)

10:30 am
The Man Who Planted Trees

Animated Drama – 30 Minutes, English, 1988

This film tells the story of a shepherd who repairs the ruined ecosystem of a secluded valley by singlehandedly cultivating a forest over a thirty year period. After the movie: A presentation of Sadhana Forest Haiti and an online video question and answer session with the current volunteers in Haiti!

 

11.00 am
Coral Reef Adventure

Documentary, Nature. 47 minutes. Director: Greg MacGillivray. 2003

Coral Reef Adventure follows the exploits and crusades of Howard and Michelle Hall as they embark on a ten-month expedition of the world’s most vibrant and endangered coral reefs. Beginning at the Great Barrier Reef off the Australian coast, the Halls explore the vast underwater ecosystem and the scores of wildlife that thrive off of it. Traveling on throughout a number of the South Pacific’s most spectacular reefs, the filmmakers also visit some reefs on the verge of extinction, making the sobering point that an entire reef’s death occurs very quickly, while its creation takes thousands of years.

 

12:00 pm
Making the Connection

Documentary, 2010 – 32 minutes. Produced by Environment Films. UK, English.

This fast-paced film from UK explores the idea of a lifestyle which combines delicious, healthy food with tackling many of the ethical and global challenges facing us today. Featuring people from different walks of life along with the wonderful Benjamin Zephaniah, it explains what you can do to improve your health and the environment, to reduce animal suffering and to help feed a growing world population.

 

2:00 pm
I Am

Documentary – 76 minutes, 2010. Tom Shadyac. English, USA

What’s wrong with our world? And What can we do about it?
With a film crew of four, Director Tom Shadyac (Nutty Proffessor, Bruce Almighty) visits some of today’s great minds, including authors, poets, teachers, religious leaders, and scientists (Howard Zinn, Lynn McTaggart, Desmond Tutu, Thom Harmann, Coleman Barks) searching for the fundamental problem that causes all of the other problems, while simultaneously reflecting on this own life choices of excess, greed and eventual healing.

 

3:30 pm
Dersu Uzala

Drama. 144 minutes, 1975. Directed by Akira Kurosawa, Russia.

Dersu Uzala is a Soviet-Japanese co-production which is Kurosawa’s first non-Japanese language film. It’s the story of a man who’s one with the wilderness and nature and can’t live any other way. Dersu Uzala is an old Goldi (a Siberian Asiatic minority) hunter who thinks he has been cursed after he kills a tiger. To him, every being, every part of nature, is equally worth as humans. The film gives an account of one Russian Captain’s relationship with Dersu, as he explores the unmapped Russian Far East wilderness. Dersu, who knows everything by looking and observing the landscape around him, is initially viewed as uneducated and eccentric by the captain’s soldiers. Through course of the expedition, they realize the value of his intelligence, instincts, observation and compassion.

The film explores the theme of a native of the forests who is fully integrated into his environment, leading a style of life that will inevitably be destroyed by the advance of civilization. It is also about the growth of respect and deep friendship between two men of profoundly different backgrounds, and about the difficulty of coping with the loss of strength and ability that comes with old age.

 

6:30 pm
What About Me?

Documentary. 118 minutes. Directors: Bridgeman and Jamie Catto. USA, 2008.

“What About Me?” is the culmination of 4 years work visiting 50 global locations collecting wisdom and musical jewels. It’s an inspiring and alarming look at our collective insanity: how we are ego-driven, needy in relationships, insatiable in desire, addicted to status, wounded by childhood and unable to stop thinking, but how we still manage to be inspired and creative. The backbone of the project is the music that One Giant Leap makes. They start with pre-composed backing tracks in a laptop studio. The music grows as each layer is added, seamlessly mixing international stars like Alanis Morissette, KD Lang and Michael Franti, with Bedouin Musicians, Chinese rappers, Gabonese Pygmies, Tuvan throat singers, Egyptian folk musicians, Japanese taiko drummers, and also the royalty of today’s world music scene including Baaba Maal, Lila Downs, Rokia Traore, Oumou Sangare, Zap Mama, all expanding on the same One Giant Leap musical vision. While Duncan & Jamie sought out wisdom from the likes of Noam Chomsky, Eckhart Tolle & Stephen Fry and the cream of the worlds thinkers, writers, and entertainers they also met many people just getting on with their lives – gravediggers, taxi drivers, brain surgeon’s, street kids. Unscripted, with no storyboard, these conversations all reveal how we are connected not only through our creativity and our beliefs but most of all through our madness! When Duncan & Jamie left on their global journey they thought they were in control but how could they predict what would happen.

Shuttle bus timings: Bus starting from Solar Kitchen at 09.30 am, 11.30 am, 1.30 pm, 5.30 pm. Bus returning from Sadhana Forest at 10.45 am, 12.45 am, 4.45 pm and 9.30 pm. The bus service is operated by Sadhana Forest. For more information about the bus service please contact Sadhana Forest