The documentary “Life Running Out of Control” helps make sense of the actions in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) which were the subject of yesterday’s posting – MOVING GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS OUTSIDE THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK.
This posting is background to the next which explains how it works and which will be further input to the General Directive on Regulating (GDR).
Many thanks to Bertram for today’s update on Life Running Out of Control. Please refer to earlier postings for background. Old-timers in our network may want to scroll directly to #2 and skip the rest.
CONTENTS
(1) COMMENTARY
(2) JUNE, 2004: RELATED TO FEDERAL ELECTION
(3) UPDATE ON LIFE RUNNING OUT OF CONTROL FROM THE DOCUMENTARY-MAKER, BERTRAM VERHAAG IN GERMANY, DEC 22, 2005.
(4) LIST OF INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS WHERE L-R-O-O-C HAS BEEN SCREENED
(5) LIST OF INTERNATIONAL AWARDS RECEIVED BY THE FILM
(6) RECOMMENDATION FROM AL TAYLOR
(7) A FEW EXCERPTS FROM PREVIOUS EMAILS
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(1) COMMENTARY
“Life running out of control” was shot at locations around the world. We worked with the film-maker, Bertram Verhaag from Germany, during shoots here in Saskatchewan to capture the real-world experience with genetically-engineered organisms that are released into the environment.
This was during our battle against roundup-resistant (herbicide-tolerant) wheat.
Bertram has a 30-year career in film-making. His documentary “Blue eyed” (Blue eyes, Brown eyes) is used around the world in the fight against racism. It is known to the public, but especially to educators. The documentary (1996) records the work of Jane Elliott. It was aired on SCN Television here in Saskatchewan in February 2005. The film makes a tremendous impact on the understanding of how power and control is exercised in a society. For me it was not only about racism.
In our network we have used “Life Running Out of Control” to understand the Government’s (CFIA’s) changes to the PLANT BREEDERS’ RIGHT ACT (should be PLANT BREEDERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES ACT), the ownership of seed issues.
David Suzuki and Bertram Verhaag make the same point: with gene technology a huge experiment has been thrust upon us with no informed public debate, a lot of propaganda and most seriously, very little is actually known about the technology and its ramifications.
Truly – this email is related to the GDR (General Directive on Regulating). It will be tied together in the next posting.
Cheers!
/Sandra
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(2) JUNE, 2004: RELATED TO FEDERAL ELECTION
The video Life Running out of Control made in Germany contains vivid, succinct information from around the world on the current state of trans-species gene manipulation using pigs, fish, canola, cotton and human genes. TWO of the investigations in that documentary are from Canada.
Herbicide-tolerant canola (RR canola) and fish. I must say, it is a topic I wish we weren’t so well known for!
The documentary tells the story of a Canadian company that sells fish and has inserted growth hormones into fish. By the age of one year the fish are 6 times the size of a one-year old fish grown naturally in the wild.
The story of the canola and the fish illustrate a point made both through the Schmeiser case and “Life Running out of Control”:
- Chemical pollution of the environment is diluted over time. Genetic pollution of the environment does the opposite: it proliferates over time.
Witness the 9 or 10 years of experience Saskatchewan has with canola that has been engineered to be resistant to Monsanto’s chemical Roundup. It is not possible today to obtain canola, even registered canola seed, that does not contain roundup resistant seeds mixed in. The seed stocks are thoroughly contaminated and the plants are a weed that is resistant to roundup. Farmers now use glyphosate (roundup) on their summer fallow (chem fallow) and must follow up with 2,4D in order to kill the resistant plants. Of course, this says nothing about the plants that spread in the country-side.
The documentary “Life Running out of Control” is a wake-up call. We are poorly informed about the amount of corporate gene manipulation and ownership claims over genes in the world today. The situation is a consequence of the failure of Governments to legislate for “the common good” or “in the public interest”.
The Supreme Court of Canada is forcing us to force our legislators to carry out its responsibilities. The Patent Law of Canada should apply to mechanical devices. That anyone or any entity should be able to patent, and thereby to have ownership over a life form is an outrageous idea.
Political parties will come to your door and tell you what policies they will pursue.
But YOU can tell the party the policy YOU will support. Together we can insist that this Election WILL be about the real issues. If you meet the canvasser with YOUR agenda, YOU deal from a position of strength: THEY have to respond, not you.
Don’t sell your vote cheaply. There is too much at stake.
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(3) UPDATE ON LIFE RUNNING OUT OF CONTROL FROM THE DOCUMENTARY-MAKER, BERTRAM VERHAAG IN GERMANY December 22, 2005
Dear friends and colleagues,
looking back on 2005 we would like to inform you about the list of festivals (19) our film “Life running out of control” was invited to in 2004/2005.
In addition to that we’re very happy to have received 8 international awards up to now.
We’re thankful that the film gets so much attention world wide and that its cinematic narrative encourages people in many different places to get involved with the subject and to become proactive, to set up initiatives and to publish books.
DVDs in Englisch and German including 75′ bonus material can be ordered on our website www.denkmal-film.com as well as in bookstores and with Amazon.
We appreciate your recommendation.
Kind regards and best wishes for a successful 2006.
Bertram Verhaag
Denkmal Films Ltd.
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(4) LIST OF INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS WHERE L-R-O-O-C HAS BEEN SCREENED
International Documentary Film Festival Munich, Germany 07.05.2004 – 15.05.2004
6th FICA International Environmental Film Festival, Goias / Brazil 01.06.2004 – 06.06.2004
Il Mostra Fica no Rio International Environmental Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro / Brazil 19.07.2004 – 21.07.2004
Naturvision – International Nature- and Animalfilmfestival, Neuschönau / Germany 16.09.2004 – 19.09.2004
23rd Vancouver International Film Festival, Vancouver / Canada v23.09.2004 – 08.10.2004
49th Cork Film Festival, Cork / Ireland 10.10.2004 – 17.10.2004
CineEco 10th International Environmental Film and Video Festival, Seia / Portugal 15.10.2004 – 24.10.2004
Ökomedia 21. International Environmental Film Festival, Freiburg / Germany 20.10.2004 – 23.10.2004
Nanookfest- “Il Silenzioso Richiamo della Terra”, Palermo/ Italy 22.11.2004 – 26.11.2004
Mar del Plata Independent Film Festival, Buenos Aires / Argentina 01.12.2004 – 10.12.2004
globale05 – the globalization-critical filmfestival, Germany / Berlin 13.01.2005 – 19.01.2005
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation¹s Capital, Washington DC / USA 10.03.2005 – 20.03.2005
International Human Rights Film Festival of Paris, France 23.03.2005 – 05.04.2005
ONE WORLD – International Human Rights Film Festival, Prague / Czech 27.04.2005 – 05.05.2005
10th Split International Film Festival of new Film, Split / Croatia 03.06.2005 – 10.06.2005
CPH:DOX – 3rd Copenhagen International Documentary Festival, Copenhagen / Denmark 04.11.2005 – 13.11.2005
The Chris Awards – 53rd Columbus International Film & Video Festival, Columbus / USA 09.11.2005 – 13.11.2005
CUT – International Filmfestival for Human Rights, Dresden / Germany 23.11.2005 – 30.11.2005
Earth Vision – International Environmental Film & Video Festival, Santa Cruz / USA 29.09.2005 – 02.10.2005
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(5) LIST OF INTERNATIONAL AWARDS RECEIVED BY THE FILM
³1.Price for best long production (The Carmo Bernardes trophy)³ 6th FICA International Environmental Film Festival 2004, Goias / Brazil
³Nominee for NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA AWARD³ 23rd Vancouver International Film Festival 2004, Vancouver / Canada
³Nominee for IDA Award³ International Documentary Association IDA¹s 20th Annual Awards Competition 2004, Los Angeles / USA
³Golden Lynx for the best journalistic achievement³ Ökomedia 21. International Environmental Film Festival 2004, Freiburg / Germany
³Environmental Great Prize (Câmara Municipal de Seia) for the best work in the category environment³ CineEco 10th International Environmental Film and Video Festival 2004, Seia / Portugal
³Special Commendation³
CineEco-youth jury 10th International Environmental Film and Video Festival 2004, Seia / Portugal
³Honorable Mention³
The Chris Awards – 53rd Columbus International Film & Video Festival 2005, Columbus / USA
³1.Price for best production in the category: Farming, Pesticides and Soils³ Earth Vision – International Environmental Film & Video Festival 2005, Santa Cruz / USA
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DENKmal-Film GmbH
Schwindstrasse 2
80798 München
tel: +49-(0)89-52 66 01
fax: +49-(0)89-523 47 42
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(6) RECOMMENDATION FROM AL TAYLOR
Feb 8 2005
I’ve seen this documentary. It is very good. Scary too about what is being done with so little knowledge, no regulation and practically no public information.
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(7) A FEW EXCERPTS FROM PREVIOUS EMAILS
Among others, “Life Running out of Control” features
– Executive Director, Andrew Kimbrell from the International Centre for Technology Assessment (ICTA), Washington, D.C.
– Dr. Vandana Shiva from the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (STE), New Delhi, India
– Marc Loiselle from the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate, the organization that has a court case against Monsanto for the damages caused by the destruction of canola markets by transgenic cropping.
(ICTA and STE were intervenors in the Supreme Court case of Monsanto versus Schmeiser, on the side of Schmeiser.)
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UPDATE: Andrew Kimbrell also plays a large and convincing role in the documentary THE FUTURE OF FOOD, A film by Deborah Koons Garcia, described in email Dec 1, 2005.
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DESCRIPTION OF “Life Running out of Control”:
“… we embark on a global journey to explore the progressive and continual genetic manipulation of plants, animals and human beings.
Due to a disastrous crop with genetically modified cotton many Indian farmers face ruin, have to sell one of their kidneys or resort to committing suicide.
In Canada genetically modified canola seeds blow onto the fields of neighbouring organic farms, thus making ecological farming impossible.
The Icelandic parliament sells the entire pool of genes of its population to a private company that, in turn, intends to turn over the data at a profit to the pharmaceutical industry and insurance companies.
A research project is designated a “vampire project” in which blood, hair and saliva samples are taken from 700 so-called ethnic groups on the verge of extinction on the pretext of preventive health. The gene samples wander into the laboratories of industry to provide the basis for valuable patents.
Worldwide only a handful of idealistic scientists are defying industry, doing independent – i.e.. without the financial support of industry – research on the effects of transgenic animals and plants on the environment and our health when we consume genetically modified food.”
I have viewed “Life Running out of Control”. Democracy cannot function if the population is uninformed. As a society we are not receiving the information required to make sound decisions. This documentary helps to fill the information gap on a topic that is critical in today’s world.
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Information on the documentary “Life Running out of Control”, as promised in email #86 B “Schmeiser in context”.
Bertram Verhaag and his crew were in Saskatoon last fall to document the experience with RR canola. They returned to capture the decision of the Supreme Court in the Monsanto vrs Schmeiser case.
These internationally-known and respected documentarians found that Canadian media in general does not appreciate the significance of the Schmeiser case in the critical issue of gene ownership, the patenting of life forms.
Consequently Canadian public debate over the issue is relatively uninformed, superficial and misses the significant points.
From where I stand, Canadian media is not doing the job required for a democracy to be healthy. (Not news to you!)