New York Times
Sun Come Up was on the cover of the New York Times global edition included in an article written by Neil MacFarquhar about climate refugees and a UN resolution that links climate change to international peace and security.
Here’s an excerpt from the article: “Jennifer Redfearn, a documentary maker, has been filming the gradual disappearance of the Carterets for a work called “Sun Come Up.” One clan chief told her he would rather sink with the islands than leave. It now takes only about 15 minutes to walk the length of the largest island, with food and water supplies shrinking all the time.”
“It destroys our food gardens, it uproots coconut trees, it even washes over the sea walls that we have built,” Ms. Rakova says on the film. “Most of our culture will have to live in memory.”
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World Changing
Press from The Next Wave, a short version of Sun Come Up, that premiered at the Media that Matters festival on June 3, 2009.
We were impressed and moved by the recently released film The Next Wave, a short documentary that received a Jury award at the Ninth Annual Media that Matters Film Festival. The story follows the struggle of the Carteret Islanders, some of the world’s first climate change refugees. These South Pacific people have lived simple, peaceful and extremely low-impact lives without cars, electricity or running water. Now global climate change is causing the resources that sustain them to die off and disappear: by 2015, the Carterets will be uninhabitable.
Producers Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger chronicle the islanders’ search for a new home in Bougainville, where they will face the challenge of gaining acceptance from war-weary inhabitants, and the task of reinventing their culture within an unfamiliar social structure. The film is a tool for fostering understanding and compassion for a sort of challenge that is becoming increasingly common in a climate changed world.
Read more online here.
The Indypendent
The Ninth Annual Media That Matters film festival premiered to a sold out theater in Chelsea June 3. It was the second year in a row that I covered the premiere and left inspired.
From environmental degradation to cultural misrepresentation, the festival’s twelve short films artfully publicize and humanize contemporary struggles. Especially effective was Exiled in America, a documentary about five Mexican-American siblings whose mother, a legal resident, was deported. Knock Knock Who’s There was an Indian public service announcement encouraging citizens to take action against domestic violence in their neighborhoods. The jury prize winner, and my personal favorite, was The Next Wave, a beautiful documentary about the sinking of the Carteret Islands – and the Islanders’ culture – due to global warming. Read more here.
IndieWire
Not-for-profits Arts Engine and Cinereach announced today that they will be teaming up as part of a yearlong partnership to support young, socially conscious filmmakers.
The two organizations, which support and distribute social issue films, will collaborate on a series of projects, beginning with the ninth annual Media That Matters Film Festival, which begins June 3, 2009, in New York City. This year’s festival includes jury prize winner “Next Wave,” director Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger’s documentary about the world’s first climate change refugees from the Carteret Islands, and “Locusts,” a docu-musical on the effects of ill-planned urban planning. Continue reading here.