details:

ECO FILM FEST 2008 (Part I)
9pm, Thursday, 16 October 2008
upstairs lounge @ Palate Palette

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 80 MINUTES featuring:

What Happened to Green? by Audrie Yeo (15 mins)

It has been years since the forging of awareness campaigns on the environment and many Malaysians have long forgotten the importance of the environment. Set in a futuristic and Cloverfield-like setting, Malaysians despite all the reminders around them have gone back to their old habits and apathetic attitudes about Nature until a strange phenomenon swept the country. Not knowing the cause of this phenomenon, Malaysians were caught off guard. Day by day, shades and hues of green starts to fade away from the surface of the earth, leaving them a dull and lifeless world we call home. What are the people going to do to restore the green back in the world?

Matangnya Matang by Asmar Hassan (30 mins)

In this documentary, urban city dwellers are exposed to the importance of mangrove forests and how these delicate areas are the key to the protection of our coastal areas in the country. Apart from functioning as a source of fossil fuel and food for the locals, mangrove forests play very important roles in stabilizing the coastal systems, and form a natural barrier against killer tidal waves. When the tsunamis struck India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu on Dec 26, 2005 for example, areas in Pichavaram and Muthupet with dense mangrove swamps suffered fewer human casualties and less damage to property compared to areas without mangroves.

In the context of preservation, management and observation of mangroves, the audience is exposed to a plethora of invaluable experiences and lessons learnt from the Matang mangroves. The Matang Mangrove Reserve is perhaps the only tract of mangroves in the world that is managed sustainably with timber extraction and fishing activities taking place through out the year.

Wasiat by Mohamed Fazry and Norhafizzah Razak (15 mins)

Wasiat is a short film narrative which follows through the life of a 50 year old man who tells his story of his childhood days. Set in the future, the man undergoes a series of flashbacks when he was 10 years old through pictorial illustrations, depicting the worsening state of environment today compared to his younger years. This short film touches on the moral obligations of mankind in leaving the future generation with a healthy planet.

Bumi Tanpa Suara by Roziah Adama (20 mins)

This short film takes an emotional twist with the story of 9-year old deaf girl name Farahani. Despite her disability, Farahani excels very well in the field of art. Having won first prize in a World Environment Day art competition, Farahani’s artwork depicted an image of a sad planet, surrounding by man-made catastrophes like global warming and deforestation. This goes to show that even a young disabled child grasps the basic understanding of the consequences of man-made actions on our planet. Without her voice, Farahani attempts to educate her father and other adults around her on their actions which contribute to global climate change. How does a father understand and accept his daughter’s “silent” plea? Is this message – without a voice – effective? What is obvious is that Farahani is a symbol of a world without a voice, who like everyone else around her, hopes to be heard.

ECO FILM FEST 2008 (Part II)
9pm, Thursday, 23 October 2008
upstairs lounge @ Palate Palette

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 90 MINUTES featuring:

A Crude Awakening – The Oil Crash
A 90-minute documentary on the planet’s dwindling oil resources
by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack

OilCrash, produced and directed by award-winning European journalists and filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, tells the story of how our civilization’s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology. Compelling, intelligent, and highly entertaining, the film visits with the world’s top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion ‚Äì our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled.

Website: oilcrashmovie.com

Palate Palette Restaurant & Bar
21 Jalan Mesui, off Jalan Nagasari, 50200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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