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Fall and Winter Trailer

Fall and Winter Trailer from Matt Manderson on Vimeo.

Fall & Winter is a documentary that tries to raise awareness of how we are mistreating our planet. The film presents the ideas and experiences of a wide range of people. It has the message that “the problems we face today were faced by people in the past and in some cases societies collapsed because they could not overcome those problems; we’re travelling down the same path today.”

Read more about the movie at: Fall and Winter.

source PDN

There have been lots of documentaries made on the global environment crisis and my first reaction to this movie was, “Oh no, not one more doom and gloom documentary!” In fact, that’s exactly how the trailer starts, with dire warnings of how we are destroying this planet.

I have viewed only the trailer but it is enough to discourage me to view the movie. The global environment crisis is an important subject but I believe we have been bombarded with so many dire warnings that the latter are starting to fall on tired ears. Personally, I hope the movie dwells more on hope and what we can do (without heaping on the guilt) to help keep this planet suitable for human life. Consider that, if we want people to take action, it is not enough to give the bad news, we must also tell people what positive things are being done and how we can help in our own small ways.

The premise that people in the past faced the same problems we face today is not totally correct and we should be careful with such sweeping statements. In fact, we have no idea what they faced and why they disappeared — probably due to disease epidemics. We face nuclear annihilation, global warming and pollution on a large scale — never faced by people in the past. We also face global disease epidemics, but I doubt that this is the main focus of the movie. People in the past faced the demise of their society, but the human race continued elsewhere on the planet. Today, we face the threat of human life ceasing to exist all over the planet. We face a Universe with no [human] life.

Finally, the title may need to be rethought. Does it imply that we are in the “Fall” and soon it will be “Winter”? I happen to love all four seasons and resent the implication that Fall and Winter are bad times. The Earth as a planet needs Fall and Winter, flood and fire. The Earth will survive the human race and will renew no matter what we do to it. It can well take whatever we throw at it, “die” and be reborn. The problem is that it may take millions of years to clean itself up and meanwhile we won’t have a livable home. The global environment crisis is not so much that we are destroying the Earth but that we are destroying the conditions necessary for us to live on it.

How serious is the situation? Scientists meet to consider drastic measures to save the planet.

1 Comment

  • Hi, I’m the director of the documentary Fall and Winter. I very much appreciate your comments, and hope that you aren’t too discouraged from watching our film. I do feel it is not on a single-track of ‘gloom and doom’. My process of making the film went from seeing no exit – no way out – to witnessing firsthand a myriad of solutions and adaptive methods which people have been developing in response to this crisis.

    I feel that the metaphor of seasons does not represent anything terminal. We all understand that there is an ebb and flow with nature (of which we are a part). The realization of our individual responsibility for fixing this crisis comes with hardship and hard work.

    I would encourage you to watch our new extended trailer which I feel gives a much fuller representation of what you can expect in the finished film.

    http://fallwintermovie.com/media/ext-teaser.html

    Thanks for taking the time to write about our film!

    Best,

    Matt Anderson