Good News!
We are excited to welcome Abigail E. Disney to Sun Come Up as our executive producer! Abigail is the producer of Pray the Devil Back to Hell . She is also involved in producing a number of other documentaries with social themes, including a four-hour project for WNET/Wide Angle called Women, War & Peace.
Sun Come Up also recently received an individual artist grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, and we have been chosen to participate in IFP’s independent film market.
We’re thrilled!
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.”
Download the article
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.
Comments from NEB Presentation
Dear Producers of Sun Come Up,
I had the pleasure of attending your presentation at NEB. I was very impressed with your work and the gentle objective approach you took in trying to understand this complex human tragedy. In my opinion, one of the major ills of our modern society is the lack of connection we have to our selves, our environment and to other human populations. This isolation leads to lack of care and responsibility for our actions.
Your elegant documentary reminded me that the rise of 1 cm of water might not make a big difference here in New England but results in the loss of habitat and whole cultures elsewhere in the world. We are all connected and should be reminded of that as often as possible.
I thank you for my education and fully support your endeavor. I wish your project all the success it deserves and hope that we learn to live in a more sustainable life style.
May your path be open
Dr. Mehmet BERKMEN
Media that Matters
The Next Wave, a short version of Sun Come Up, will premiere at the Media that Matters festival.
June 3, 2009 from 7:00 – 8:30 pm
SVA Visual Arts Theater - 333 W 23rd Street (b/t 8th & 9th Ave.)
This will be the first official public screening of the ninth annual Media That Matters Film Festival. Located in the heart of NYC’s Chelsea area, the SVA Visual Arts Theater - a brand new space with incredible screening facilities - is a great venue for us to screen our newest collection to a diverse audience of Arts Engine friends, film buffs, press members, activists and the general public. Tickets can be purchased here.
New England Biolabs
Massachusetts here we come! Next week, May 14, we’ll screen a trailer of Sun Come Up and give a talk to employees at New England Biolabs (NEB) You can learn more about NEB’s sustainable business practices here.