On Thursday, April 18, 2013, FilmfestDC offered another environmental
film as part of its “Green Screen” or “Earth Month” in the Columbia Room at
Union Station, “Elemental”, by Gayatri Roshan and Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee.
The film centers somewhat on water, with three parallel
environmental stories, interleaved. In India, Rajendra Singh recruits the
masses to help clean up the Ganges, often with dirty manual labor and wading in
muck. Toward the end, the film shows us the source of the river in the
Himalaya.
In northern Alberta, Eriel Deranger leads demonstrations
against the tar sands project, which has disfigured an area the size of New
Jersey, although the land is largely flat so there isn’t an issue with
mountaintop removal. The film gets into
moral questions about using land of aboriginal or native peoples, but the oil
companies claim that they have given then people “real jobs” and real money.
Plenty of arrests and demonstrations are shown, including those in October 2011
in front of the White House, specifically against the XL Pipeline.
In California, a nearly bankrupt Australian inventor, Jay
Harman proposes a system based on a mathematical concept, based on a fractal
and vortex, to shot reflective compounds into the stratosphere and reverse
global warming. The film doesn’t explain
the concept particularly well. At the end. Harman retires into the woods in a cabin, in poverty.
The link for the film is here. The film also aired in Austin and Cleveland
film festivals.
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