URANIUM FESTIVAL JORDAN
Press Releases - Dec 12, 2014
The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung's Palestine & Jordan, in cooperation with the Royal Film Commission of Jordan and the Goethe Institut Jordan, supported the International Uranium Film Festival's premiere in Jordan. The three day event in the Rainbow Theatre from Dec 16 to Dec 18 showed films about uranium mining, DU weapons and Fukushima. The Brazilian born film festival was also backed by a number of Jordanian environmental organizations in Amman. Download Program:
Japan, 2013, 71 min, Japanese and English, English/Arabic subtitles
Documentary
The award-winning film A2-B-C is named for the different stages of growth of thyroid cells from harmless cysts to cancer. Many children in Fukushima were never evacuated after the nuclear meltdown on March 11, 2011. Now the number of Fukushima children found to have thyroid cysts and nodules is increasing. What will this mean for their future? „There is no way for us to escape from this fear. We’re not only worried about external radiation exposure, but also about internal exposure. So we’re testing all the food.“
Q&A with Ian Thomas Ash + N.N. (Amman 2014)
Germany, 2012, 4 min, no dialogue
Animation
World Premiere
Animated short film about Fukushima children who can't play outside. About their dreams and realities.
Bachelor in 2012 of Shoko Hara and Paul Brenner
Sound design and Music: Lorenz Schimpf
Teachers: Prof. Klaus Birk, Alexander Hanowski, Martin Hesselmeier
DHBW Ravensburg, Studiengang Mediendesign
Director Paul Brenner present, Munich 2013
(Ragi Kana Ko Bonga Buru)
India, 1999, 52 min, English
Documentary
Not part of the Competition
"Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda" is a documentary film on uranium mining and its deadly impacts on the tribal people living near the Jadugoda mine, mill and tailings dam, in the East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand (India). Unsafe mining, milling and tailings management by UCIL in this area for almost 30 years has resulted in excessive radiation, contamination of water, land and air, destruction of the local ecology, and lead for to genetic mutation, and slow death for the people of the region. The film attempts to depict the gross misuse of power by the authorities in displacing the original inhabitants of the region, the utter lack of concern for internationally accepted norms and safety precautions in the handling of uranium and its by-products, and their callousness of its disastrous impact on the people and the region.
Director Shri Prakash present, Berlin 2012
Q&A with Shriprakash + RAOUF DABBAS, Amman 2014
Ukraine, 2011, 11 min
Sand-Animation film, no dialogue
The film was created in sand animation technique as a tribute to those who died immediately or was dying a slow death for years or who today is seriously ill having received the radiation dose as a child. Chernobyl consequences, we see them today, the increasing number of cancer patients, especially among children in my country. These are the children of my peers, peers of Chernobyl catastrophe. Every event of our times and each event of the past should teach us: The main thing is to remember.
(Irak: Les Enfants Sacrifiés De Falluja)
Irak/France | 2011 | 48 min | Documentary
Director: Feurat Alani | Producer: Baozi Production
Original Language: English and French
In 2004, Fallujah in Iraq became the theater of a major showdown between american army and iraq insurgents. But what the american used in this war is secret. What kind of weapons did they drop? For now and since 2005, deformed babies are born. What really happened in Fallujah? Is depleted uranium the cause of the health problem?
Film website: http://www.baoziprod.com/New/?p=3440
Director's Blog: http://feuratalani.blogspot.com.br
Awards:
Investigation award and Remand Center Award in Grand Scoop Festival in Lille, 2011
Freedom and human rights Award in Al Jazeera Festival in Qatar in April 2012
International Committee of the Red Cross Award in Monte-Carlo’s Festival in June 2012
Public Award and Jury Award in Khouribga Documentary Film Festival (Morocco), 2012
USA, 2012, 12 min, English
Documentary
Just outside Grants, New Mexico, is a 200-acre heap of toxic uranium waste, known as tailings. After 30 years of failed cleanup, the waste has deeply contaminated the air and water near the former uranium capital of the world. TAILINGS is a cinematic investigation into the pile that is gravely shaping the lives of those who are stuck living in its shadow.
TRAILER: http://tailingsfilm.com
TAILINGS won the Best New Mexico Short Award of the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival.
Iran, 2013, 6 min, without dialog
Animated fiction
Special Achievement Award 2013
A world war had been destroyed the entire civilization. Everybody is wondering around lost, neglecting each other. Until one day a young girl finds the last flower on earth. Excited from her discovery she runs to people to tell them about the flower, but people do not care. At last a young man shows interest to the story. Together they take care of the flower and fall in love. With love, the entire planet grow and people begin to build civilization again. Meanwhile the war machine factories appear and the story of war begin again...
(Polveri di guerra. Uranio a Beirut)
Italy, 2007, 23 min, English
Production Rainews24
Special Achievement Award 2013
Enriched uranium has been found in the fuel filter of an ambulance in Beirut. Uranium has been found also in one of the analysed urine samples. UNEP too found uranium in all the sites that were examined but they considered that it was natural uranium. Both in their most radioactive form and in their depleted form uranium powders are highly toxic.