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!

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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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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.

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.

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.

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

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.