Green – a film which needs to be seen

“Green” - a film which needs to be seen

http://www.greenthefilm.com/ – to view the trailer and download the film.

This is not a documentary for the faint-hearted but it is a documentary that should be viewed by as many people as possible. Winner of Best Documentary Short in the recent Durango Independent Film Festival, and directed by Moez Moez, “Green” documents the last hours of a female orangutan’s life.

She is first seen packed into a duffel bag, her head bumping from side to side as she is driven in the back of a pickup truck. She is taken to a clinic but it is too late to save her. It is almost as though the life is being sucked from her as her environment is destroyed. She becomes just another victim of deforestation and palm oil plantations.

The film portrays the beauty and diversity of Green’s once lush ecosystem through from elephants, a variety of primates to dragonflies. However the loggers soon move in and the destruction commences.

The documentary tracks each of the threats that orangutans face  – from the timber industry supplying the exotic furniture trade or the pulp and paper market through to the palm oil industry feeding the insatiable demand for food, cosmetics and biodiesel. The illegal pet trade thrives in the middle of the destruction. The film also documents the soul-destroying situation of wild animals in captivity.

It pulls no punches. We cannot absolve ourselves from it as it is us, the global consumers, who are the cause. A list of “credits” at the end of the film runs through not only the various companies involved along the supply chain but finishes pointedly on “the consumers around the world.” Unfortunately this is one credit where you won’t want to take a bow.