The 4th Ecocinema International Environmental Film Festival in Rhodes (Greece) opened on Tuesday evening with the screening of the Whale Rider, a fiction film by Niki Caro from New Zealand, based on a novel by Witi Ihimaera.

The film is a poetic evocation of how the indigenous peoples try to keep on transmitting their traditions to their children although they now live in a modern society. According to the Maori mythology, the first human being was brought to earth on the back of a whale a long time ago, an image that summarizes the close relationship between civilization and nature. To perpetuate these myths and traditions, these people try to educate their sons to become leaders, just like their ancestors who were taught the art of war and intimidation. So, when the old man portrayed in the film learns that of his twin grandchildren, a boy and a girl, only the girl survived at birth, he became quite desperate. The girl, who is played by a very sensitive Keisha Castle-Hughes, will have hard times to convince her grandfather that she is worth the teaching. Her constant efforts whatever his indifference undoubtedly bring a lot of emotional intensity to this story that portrays the conflicts between tradition and modernity, nature and civilization.

Although the film was shown out of the competitive sections of the festival, it somehow sums up the spirit of this event which covers environmental topics in their broadest meaning, because environment is not only restricted to the protection of nature as we usually think. The interactions of man and his environment are much more complex than that, and the short and feature-length films scheduled during the 6 days of the festival give an excellent insight into this complexity. So, if the militant protection of nature is covered in a film like Wildness by Scott Millwood from Australia, other films deal with corporate responsibility, like The Corporation, by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbot from Canada, or with the archaic aspects of our own modern civilization, as in the short animation film Biotope by Merwan Chabane from France.

To better assess such a wide spectrum of subjects, the jury members come from very diverse backgrounds : directors (Menelaos Karamaghiolis, Stefan Tolz, Dimitris Indares), scholars and environmental activists (Yannis Sakiotis, Stavros Yfantis), TV executives (Julia Kasprzak, Mike Bolland, Koralia Georgakopoulo), an architect (Alexandra Karidis), an interior designer (Giorgos Pittas), an environmental material designer (Anna Kremezi-Margaritouli), a festival programmer (Masoud Amralla Al Ali), a photographer (Nikos Panayotopoulos), and a representative of an international organization (Artemis Zenetou).
Undoubtedly, their task will be daunting but exciting, as they will have to award prizes in 5 sections : feature films, short films, films on wetlands, Mediterranean films, Greek films.

Beside these competitive sections, which are totally opened to the public, the audience and the jury will have the opportunity to watch a selection of 24 information films, films honouring indigenous people, and Italian Film Archives of the period between the two world wars (when Rhodes was occupied by Italy) relating to the Dodecanese.

Olivier Delesse