Asta der TUD zeigt: Earth Worm (in S1|03 Raum 23)

Der Asta der TU-Darmstadt zeigt am 30.07. mit technischer Unterstützung durch den Filmkreis den Film Earth Worm. Die Filmvorstellung ist Teil einer Reihe von Veranstaltungen welche an diesem Tag in Darmsatdt vom Asta organsisiert werden um auf die heute in Darmstadt gastierende Fahrraddemo aufmerksam zu machen.

Da am 30.7. das Audimax noch wegen Umbauarbeiten gesperrt ist wird die Veranstaltung im Gebäude S1|03 Raum 23 stattfinden.

Hier nun noch einige Filminformationen vom Regiseur des Films in englisch. Der Text spiegelt somit nicht unbedingt die Meinung des Asta oder des Filmkreises wieder.

Earth Worm
Company Man

"We are the earthworms, we can’t live out of this earth”
Kui song of resistance

A documentary by Amarendra and Samarendra, shot in 2005 in the Kui-Oriya language. Filmed in mini-DV, duration 124 mins. The film focuses on:

Three bauxite rich fertile mountains (Niyamgiri, Baplamali, Gandhamardan) of Orissa, Eastern India and the alumina companies threatening them

Dispossession of tribal people from their ancestral land

Pollution of the environment, destroying their mountains, wildlife and the flora and fauna

The spiritual values and beliefs of the tribal people through their stories, songs, music and dance

How the resistance movement to the multinational companies has gone all the way to the Supreme Court of India, where the companies are now appealing against a verdict which overturned their leases on the basis that they were illegally obtained

The story of the decade long resistance 1993 – 2005 …in their own voices

The konds are one of the major tribes in India, around a million, who have lived for thousands of years on these ‘’kondalite’ mountains. This film is about “how they came here” and “what happens if they have to leave”.

They speak out for the first time in their own words about what true and “stable” development is.

The film exposes the myth that mining brings prosperity through showing the personal stories of those affected by the reality of its impact.

Background
The world has enough metal already for all non-destructive uses. Modern mining
has become a violent human activity on the earth. A system which perpetuates more violence.

The old meaning of metal = fertility = consciousness = source of energy and wealth = sense of being = skeletons of the mother earth (Kogi belief) has lost its sheen.

Mining eats 40% of the world’s forest, spews 50% of toxic emissions and consumes 10% of energy dwarfing all the other urban human activity. (SOURCE: Worldwatch.org)

A book co-written with Felix Padel, to be published in conjunction with the film, explores in more detail the political economy of the aluminium industry and its links to the arms industry (bauxite is used to make aluminium) and to the dam building projects all over the world. (Aluminium refineries have to be situated close to the dam because of the vast amounts of hydro-electric power needed for the smelters).

Basic purpose of the documentary
To help the villagers living around these mountains to see and hear the stories of other villages, where in some cases they have managed to save their mountains, and in others they are struggling to survive where they have already been taken over by the mining companies:

This was done by showing the footage shot on one mountain to villagers of another mountain throughout the process of making the documentary – sometimes only on the LCD screen of the camera. This helped distant mountains communicate and aided the building up of cohesive informed resistance.

Now activists are carrying generators, TVs, VCRs and sound systems to remote tribal areas to show the complete documentary to hundreds of people living around these mountains.

How the documentary was made
This is an independent documentary made on a shoestring budget, and my younger brother, Amarendra Das, who studied film direction at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), volunteered to join me in making it.

Most of the time, my brother and I climbed these mountains, carrying our camera and equipment, travelling for weeks at a time, sometimes facing police intimidation and harassment. Slowly we built up a relationship of trust with the people who lived on these mountains, listening and learning and sharing their experiences.

Samarendra Das is an investigative journalist, writer and environmental campaigner, working with the tribal people of India. Also a member of Samajwadi Jan Parishad (Socialist People’s Council), which emerged in 1995 out of a people’s movement with Gandhian values, non-elected pressure groups who were questioning the ongoing, accepted notions of “development”, “technology” and “life-style”