The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is the highlight of my year. I go to four to six films a day for the ten days of the festival. Every year I want to diary the best films, but I am so busy, and so exhausted at the end of the day, that I never have. This year I have decided to be willing to throw a diary together, just to get one out there, when I see important films. This is tonights report.
Seeing these independent films and documentaries makes mainstream Hollywood films look even more shallow, if you can believe that. It is a shame more of these films don't reach a wider audience. It took me a while to discover that documentaries with daunting topics--such as, torture or environmental catastrophe--are more often inspiring than depressing. Now I try to see as many docs as I can.
[Other documentaries proving a person or small group of people can make a difference: The Whistleblower, Yes Madam, Sir, and The Road to Fallujah.]
I'm skipping a film to write about what I just saw: the world premiere of Someplace With a Mountain, a film documenting the effect of rising sea levels on inhabitants of low-lying Pacific atolls as well as attempts to rescue them. I need an editor, because this film sparked thoughts of so many general truths, that I need to leave a few ideas out. Sorry, but I'm just going to try to touch on them all.
I mentioned a theme last night: the bad news is that humanity is facing enormous challenges while our institutions are as likely to be causing the problems as to be tackling them. The good news is that single people can make an extraordinary difference. Both films I saw this afternoon fell in line with both sides of that good/bad equation.
Steve Goodall, the filmmaker, sailed away from the U.S. in 2004, "after Bush was re-elected". After the film, Steve mentioned that his father had always wanted to visit atolls in the Pacific. Steve lived his father's dream, and one result is this film. The following preview contains what strikes me as an iconic moment. The inhabitants had not heard about predicted sea level rise. Steve showed them Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, and recorded their reactions upon first seeing the future predicted for their homes.
Sea level has risen five inches in the last five years in that part of the Pacific. There was nothing theoretical in what these folks were seeing--they immediately understood. Many crops are already under water and shorelines are eroding. With the protective shoreline vegetation dying, the islanders--the Navigators--are in immediate danger of destruction in case of a severe typhoon. Already they have experienced a rogue wave washing over the entire island. In the long run, the fate of their homes is certain.
Watching this film, I kept thinking of my brother, a denialist. This film depicts an everyday life in deep connection with the actual world. The people of the atolls are some of the few left in the world who live without fossil fuels or machines. They survive with their hands, sustainably, in the ways of the ancestors of 2,000 years, relying on coconut trees, taro, bananas, pigs, chickens, and products of the sea. They build their homes from coconut trees. It was hard to imagine a denialist not being swayed by this beautiful, sad, inspiring film. But I suppose if people can believe the moon landing was staged, they can resist any truth.
I kept thinking of our own fractured, divided culture as I compared the grounded, unselfconscious words of their leaders with those of our own politicians; as I compared their instant real-world understanding of the meaning of coming sea level rise with our own endless and confused debates over whether it is real, what it means, and what we should do; as I compared their organic orientation toward love and support for the village with our own alienated worship of profit and competition.
The words of the leaders were simple and heart-wrenching. My best recollection:
Our crops are already flooding. We have no mountain. We have no place to go. We need help.
More honorable than the "Honorable Gentlemen" of the U.S. Senate express in millions of empty words.
We ask if you can include us in your plans for the future.
We need to go on an epic voyage, like our ancestors. But where will we go?
We may starve before we drown.
I had already been thinking of the word hero, how I'm ready to throw it out of the lexicon. Or leave it for those people who brave bullets, but also fire bullets. My inspiration is coming from people who simply do their job, out of commitment to the family of humanity. This was a theme in the human trafficking film of last night. As the director of the second film, which I will mention in the tip jar, said, "I wanted to show ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Anyone could do what these people did, but not everyone would have."
After the screening, I mentioned to Steve my theme of individuals making a difference. He told me that he had initially left himself out of the film, but was told to include himself. He is not a hero, and he has no interest in being in the public eye. But he is willing to be if it will help. Our conversation led him to tell a story. He and his brother saw a forest fire near Lake Tahoe. They grabbed two shovels from the back of their truck and began shoveling dirt. They knew it was hopeless, but had no choice but to try. And that is where we are today as we face seemingly insurmountable problems. As a punchline to the story, Steve said the Forest Service finally came by and told them that it was under control. Reluctantly, they stopped shoveling dirt. Steve said drily, "With the trees in flames, the U.S. Government told us it was under control." We both laughed heartily.
Steve is shoveling dirt on the problems of the natives living on the atolls. He created a video which he showed to leaders and residents of Yap, a nearby island, asking if the people there would allow some of the natives to relocate. The Yapese have now agreed. As one of the politicians said, and meant, "It would be embarrassing not to help." Imagine, a politician embarrassed. There are problems to surmount, logistical and financial. There will not be enough resources for the self-sufficient culture to remain as it is. But if this can happen soon enough, they will not starve nor drown.
After he saw what he needed to do, Steve waited three months for a real video camera to arrive so he could make this film, hoping to generate help for his specific cause. It is my more general hope that this film can make climate change real for more people. As I was watching, I thought how, on the basis of our fossil fuel, we can easily feel superior to these primitive people. The better-hearted among us can want to help, taking the attitude of care-takers. But the more humble among us may realize, as Steve put it after the film, how advanced are the residents of the threatened atolls. The day is fast approaching when their practical survival skills, using no fossil fuels, will make us look like low-skill Neanderthals. It is we who have the most important lesson to learn from those who know how to live in harmony, sustainably, with lives effortlessly devoted to the common good.
Steve also set himself the task of finding an island on which the culture could survive intact. He has located one, far away, which could support a fraction of the population. The island is for sale for several million dollars. Steve is starting the process of raising funds to buy the island on the well-founded belief that governments will not take an interest in keeping the culture alive. The Yapese are also looking for assistance with their generous work toward creating a new home for displaced residents of the atolls, an effort likely to find some government funding.
One person befriended a chief, educated him about sea level rise, and worked to find a solution. One person who cared enough to try.
One way to help the cause is to donate at APUUR.org. APUUR is a project of Islands First.
The people of the atolls naturally work for the benefit of the village. A teacher spoke of the pride in seeing his son, whom he taught to build a canoe, now helping feed the village. This brought me to create a hierarchy in my mind, a new Chain of Being:
Selfless helper of all humankind.
Person whose efforts are devoted to the benefit of his village.
Person who neutrally goes along with what others are doing.
Person for whom others are useful as labor for selfish benefit.
Person for whom the world and everything in it are nothing more than potential sources of profit.