Green Film Festival in Seoul

49 Words for Snow
Festival Section : The Other Side of Civilization
Director : Yorgos Avgeropoulos
Release : 2007
Country : Greece
Genre : DOCUMENTARTY
Running Time : 64'

Programme Note:
In Greenland, the vast land of ice which is now melting at a great speed, all that we hear on the news and read about in the newspapers constitutes the everyday life of its few inhabitants. The Inuit watch helpless as their life changes dramatically and their Arctic civilization receives what is probably the worst blow in its long, frozen history. This documentary also present the new "el dorado" of oil companies who are preparing to drill for black gold in the planet’s most vulnerable area.

Ancient Futures - Learning from Ladakh
Festival Section : The Other Side of Civilization
Director : Helena Norberg-Hodge
Release : 1993
Country : UK
Genre : DOCUMENTARTY
Running Time : 60'

Programme Note:
Ladakh, or ‘Little Tibet’, is a wildly beautiful desert land high in the Western Himalayas. It is a place of few resources and an extreme climate. Yet for more than a thousand years, traditions of frugality and cooperation, coupled with an intimate and location-specific knowledge of the environment, enabled the Ladakhis to prosper. Then came ‘development’. Centuries of ecological balance and social harmony are under threat from pressures of globalisation and the consumer monoculture.

The Power of Community
Festival Section : Green Panorama
Director : Faith Morgan
Release : 2006
Country : USA
Genre : DOCUMENTARTY
Running Time : 53'37

Programme Note:
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half and food by 80 percent- people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people. They share how they transitioned from highly mechanized agriculture to using organic farming and urban gardens.

Off the Grid with Les Stroud
Festival Section : Climate Change & Future
Director : Les Stroud
Release : 2006
Country : Canada
Genre : DOCUMENTARTY
Running Time : 67'

Programme Note:
Les Stroud and Sue Jamison, along with their two young children, share their experience leaving a world of electricity bills and water problems and going ‘off the grid’ as they move to Northern Ontario. Filmmaker wanted to show that you need be neither a back-to-the-lander, an electrical engineer or rich to escape the clutches of government controlled electricity and water.