Green is an unusual film. It is both a hard hitting portrayal of the causes and consequences of deforestation in Indonesia, and a film which captures the tranquillity and calm of wild nature. It contains no narrative or dialogue and yet helps us understand complex commodity chains. It was made with a small camera by a single person on a tourist visa, and has beaten much larger production teams, and healthily funded groups to the most prestigious prizes in environmental film-making. And if that is not enough Green was not made for sale or profit, instead you can watch and download it for free at this website or on Youtube (or see below for how to get a DVD of it).
Green needs to be taken seriously. That means it, and the issues it touches upon, need to be studied critically. The purpose of this site is to facilitate that study and make Green even more accessible to student audiences. We hope that this will facilitate the action and thinking that Green requires. For it is difficult just to watch it, but what to do requires some thought.
In these pages we present 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. Each essay should take 5 minutes or so to read. They are followed by a response to the issues raised from Patrick. You can post your comments on the film or essays at the dedicated comments page.
The essays are:
1. Gill Branston: ‘Greening the Wildlife Film’
2. John Blewitt: ‘J’accuse’
3. Mike Goodman: ‘Green’s Fate: truth, genre and their consequences’
4. Jamie Lorimer: ‘Evoking orang-utans: the affective logics of opposition to tropical deforestation’
5. James Igoe: ‘Culture Industry and Spectacle‘
6. Dan Brockington: ‘Forest Networks’
7. Sian Sullivan: ‘Green – Going Beyond ‘the Money Shot’
8. Patrick Rouxel: ‘Response and Reflections’
We have also provided additional resources in the form of:
Information about Green’s Awards
Discussion Points for class debate
Further Reading
Information about the Authors
Finally, if you would like an NTSC DVD of Green by post please go to the San Francisco based distributor at this link. To order a PAL DVD of Green, please write to Eva (based in Paris, France) at this address: eva ‘AT’ almathefilm.com. The DVD is copyright free for all non commercial screenings. Please don’t hesitate to make copies of it and screen the film as widely as possible in schools, universities, workshops etc.
This site is a product of the AHRC funded network ‘Spectacular Environmentalisms’ (AH/H039279/1) which supported the trip to WildScreen. Our thanks to them and to the organisers and participants of the ‘Nature, Inc!’ conference where these ideas and the website were first presented.
Studying Green 