The purpose of this entry is two-fold. First, we want to note that the Cinema for Peace Foundation has been regularly posting their Trailers of the Day for films to which it's lent its support. The goal of the Foundation "is to inspire people to dig deeper into issues and topics which the news only covers at the surface."
One of the films they've chosen to highlight recently is Adam Wakeling's Up in Smoke, nominated for the International Green Film Award 2012 at the Cinema for Peace Gala 2012 and currently touring the festival circuit (see the site). The documentary focuses on an ongoing yet little-publicized environmental catastrophe: "Over 250 million farmers throughout the tropics use slash and burn agriculture to yield subsistence crops in rain forests. It sends more carbon into the air annually than half of all global transport."
Wakeling tracks the efforts of Mike Hands, a British scientist who's spent 25 years developing a solution: "His focus has been to replicate the functions of the rainforest, on land once covered in rainforest, within a sustainable and organic system. Using an agro-forestry technique known as alley-cropping, perfected by his pioneering work, it could revolutionize agriculture in the tropics, turn the poverty trap on its head, and enable carbon sequestration on a global scale."
And now he's got to convince the powers that be to implement his technique. He "finds himself on the verge of a triumph in being invited to the Copenhagen Climate Summit by the Honduran government in 2009, to present his work in the global media spotlight. Yet a cruel twist of fate sees a Honduran military coup derail the Copenhagen process and destroy Mike's chances at the eleventh hour." Hands: "It's been 25 years. I'm not going to give up now."
Up in Smoke is currently on tour in Germany.
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