The Wisdom Years documentary was screened at Silver College in Kobe on 8 and 9 September 2008 and colleagues from the WHO Centre for Health Development were on hand to answer questions.

Silver College appears in the Wisdom Years documentary as an example of how communities can provide educational facilities for retirees. The screenings were well recevied by the college students and over one hundred attended.

Also this week, we completed the English and Japanese versions of the website that suppoorts the documentaries. We call it an e-case study (similar to Saving the Ayuquila River).

Take a look and let us know what you think.

On Saturday, August 30 at 7 PM, “Voices of the Chichinautzin” screened at the Moondance International Film Festival, in Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. The documentary was very well received by an international audience of filmmakers, writers, and the general public. Many people were interested to learn more about the Chichinautzin region, the current status of illegal logging, and the issues the local communities continue to face.

The Moondance Film Festival’s primary goal is “to present films and scripts which have the power to raise awareness about vital social issues, educating writers, filmmakers and film festival audiences and inspiring them to take positive action. Moondance believes in the unique power of the world of entertainment media to create great social and environmental change”.

I had the pleasure of attending the Moondance Festival and it was very rewarding to see the documentary generating awareness about the issues in the Chichinautzin and inspiring people to take action on similar issues in their own backyards. A great honor was to receive the Sandcastle Award for “Best Feature Documentary”, which is an award for a female and male filmmaking team. As writer-director, I had the opportunity to work with a great team on this project. Congratulations to all of our crew, everyone at the UNU Media Studio, the Autonomous University of the State of Morales in Mexico, the communities of Tepoztlan,  Nepopualco, and San Juan Atzingo, and especially many thanks to my collaborator, producer and co-director, Luis, for his creative energy and commitment to this documentary project.

Voices of the Chichinautzin was awarded Best Science and Ecology Documentary at the 2nd IberoAmerican Film Festival held in Tepotzlan, Mexico, 11-18 May 2008.

Luis Patron, from the UNU Media Studio, was on hand to pick up the special Zapata statue. He was also present at the screening and participated in the follow-on question and answer session.

The documentary tells the story of the daily struggles of the local communities as they try to protect a biodiverse region outside Mexico City from illegal logging and development pressures. It was written, directed and co-produced by Patricia Sims, produced and co-directed by Luis Patron and edited by Michael Clark. The graphics and animations were produced by Sean Wood and David Jimenez.

The documentary will be screened on television in Mexico later this year.

Note: The photo of the statue is taken from the festival website.

On 15 May I traveled to the Lagunas de Zempoala National Park in central Mexico to join an event organized by the Tlahuica community of San Juan Atzingo and Greenpeace . They commemorated one year of the death of Aldo Zamora, a young environmentalist from this indigenous community who was killed by illegal loggers. The story of this tragic event is told in the UNU-produced documentary Voices of the Chichinautzin.

For me it was good to meet again Aldo’s father Ildefonso Zamora, and the Thahuica Chief Alejandro Ramirez, two of the key people featured in the documentary. I had the opportunity of giving them a DVD copy of the video, and visit their land and projects for the whole day.

I am happy to report that things had changed a lot in the area since the last time I have been there. Following Aldo’s death, the massive incursion of the army and police forces has caused illegal logging activities to decrease on an estimated 95%. The Tlahuicas have also received lots of material support from several government agencies, which includes trucks and uniforms (see photo) among other things. Their ecotourism project in the Tonatihua lagoon has been built and is already receiving visitors. Perhaps most importantly, after a legal battle which spanned several decades, the ownership of 18,000 hectares of their lands had finally been given official government recognition.

However, this success story has a very bad downside. A year has passed and justice has not been done, as the identified killers of Aldo Zamora have not been captured.

Some images from the opening ceremony of the Iberoamerican Documentary Festival in Tepoztlan, Mexico. The UNU-produced documentary Voices of the Chichinautzin is part of the official selection of the festival.

The UNU produced documentary Voices of the Chichinautzin has been selected to participate in the official section of the Iberoamerican Documentary Film Festival of Memory in Tepoztlan, Morelos.

The exciting thing about this is that the documentary tells the story of the city in which the festival is being held. It will be a great opportunity to use the documentary as an environmental education media tool, and to have an interesting discussion with the people that are featured in the movie.

The festival will take place between May 11 and 18. For more information please visit the festival website (in Spanish only).

We have just been informed that Saving the Ayuquila River: Video Documentary and E-Case Study has been selected as a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge Awards 2008. This is a six category Award for ICT for Development projects. The best projects will win the prestigious Stockholm Challenge trophies and receive a 5.000 Euro stipend.

Our project is a finalist in the Environment category and was reviewed by the jury composed of international experts in the area of ICT for Development. Only up to 20% of the entries that make it to the jury round are selected as finalists.

The winners of the Stockholm Challenge Award 2008 trophies are revealed during the ceremony in the Stockholm City Hall, on May 22, 2008.

Last Monday, March 3, we had the opportunity of screening Voices of the Chichinautzin to an audience of 250 people in an event organized by the Morelos State Autonomous University. The event was part of the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Chichinautzin Biological Corridor, and Brendan Barrett and I participated via video conference all the way from Tokyo.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the event was the audience, which included people from the local communities of the Chichinautzin, the Chichinautzin Corridor director, as well as students and professors of the biology department of the University. Several of the people that appear in the documentary were present, including Ildefonso Zamora, who also gave a speech.

The film seemed to have a strong effect on people, as the discussions after the screening were quite heated. Most people praised the film before quickly moving into passionate discussions about the actual problems of the Chichinautzin, such as a new highway project that would cut across the protected area. The film was particularly effective in getting biology students thinking, with many of them expressing the view that they should take immediate action and use their knowledge to participate in solving the Chichinautzin problems.

This screening has taught me the importance of showing the documentary to the people whose story is being portrayed by the film. I think the documentary has great potential as an environmental education tool, and we should screen it in all the communities of the Chichinautzin.