Hello all.
This is a long-shot, but I wonder if anyone can help me track down a powerful television film I saw several years ago.
The film, a full-length (1 hour) TV film, possibly for the BBC's Natural World though I can't be sure of that, was by an artist who had considered and presented her message so extraordinarily well that it left me quite gobsmacked. Not only would I like to see it again (although it was really quite shocking), but I think it ought to be mandatory viewing for all! I'd like to be able to recommend it - the only trouble is I can't remember the details of the film or the name of the young woman who made it.
The premise was a simple one: the film-maker spent several days on an island in the southern ocean (perhaps South Georgia or somewhere similar), collecting the various plastic items that she found in the carcasses of albatross chicks and other birds that hadn't made it and had since rotted away. She then laid all of these plastic items out on the beach (above the strand-line I presume!) in groups, so a row of plastic combs, a block of cigarette lighters, a row of flip-flops, plastic toy figurines etc etc, in order to demonstrate where a lot of our rubbish ends up.
As you can imagine it was quite distressing, given the sheer number of objects and the scale of the damage they were doing, but it was a sensitively made, simple, non-gratuitous film that I'd love to track down in order to recommend gently to people who perhaps aren't convinced of the value of sorting their rubbish, since as you can imagine it does make quite an impact!
Hope someone can help shine some light.
Many thanks,
Matt
hope this helps, best regards mac
www.mindfully.org/Plastic/.../Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
Hi Matt
I do remember programmes about this subject. I had a feeling that the garbage all ends up in the Pacific due to the currents rather than South Georgia which is in the South Atlantic. I could be wrong about this.
I've Googled a couple of links which may help you get started.
This one specifially refers to the BBC South Pacific series. Don't know if this is the one you were thinking of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pacific_%28TV_series%29
The second one is more general about the Pacific Garbage Patch but there may be some references you could follow up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
Hope this helps.
TJ
____________________________________________________________________
Tony
My Flickr Photostream
thanks tjay just found it, but you got before me. best regards mac
Hi Matt,
Your description immediately rang a bell - I had the idea I'd seen it as a clip on Youtube and managed to find it. I guess this is from the BBC series that TeeJay referred to - horrifying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yom6zlm5VqE
Hi all,
Yes - thank you Sue, that's the film - evidently it's called "Hawaii: Message in the Waves" by Rebecca Hosking. From the leads that Mac and TJ had given I had just managed to track it down too and was just coming back to the forum to say 'this is it...' so you beat me to it!
So, having watched it again I still think it should be mandatory viewing for all. Seems I was evidently way off the mark in thinking that it might have been on South Georgia though - don't think they've ever seen sunshine like that down there!
Thanks all for helping me track it down - and what a wonderful thing this forum is!
.... incidentally, here's another link which also leads to the other segments of the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVQTp-m74wA
... thanks again