PRESS CONFERENCE
IN THE SHADOW OF THE QUAKE – WHEN THE DRAGON SWALLOWED THE SUN – THE MERMAIDS’ TEARS: OCEANS OF PLASTIC
A Press Conference was held on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 during the 12th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival by the directors Sibel Bilgin (In the Shadow of the Quake), Sandrine Feydel (The Mermaids’ Tears: Oceans Of Plastic) and Dirk Simon (When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun).
A decade ago, Sibel Bilgin recorded the experiences of the people who lived through the Marmara earthquake in her film My broken town. With In the Shadow of the Quake, which is being screened at the 12th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, the director returns to that area and focuses on what became of the people in the ten years that have passed. “The landscape was completely different. If you didn’t know, you would never suspect there had been an earthquake there. But in spite of the fact that people don’t talk about it, the shadow of the quake looms over the whole area”. Bilgin’s film is precisely about this shadow, which hangs over the lives of the people, revealing wounds that have not yet healed. “When we had gone there right after the quake, I was afraid that even asking questions of these people, who had lost everything, was like mocking them. But I discovered that no matter what I asked, no matter what they answered, or if they repeated themselves over and over, they needed to talk. We followed their lives for a year and in spite of being depressed, they started to smile when they saw us. Gradually they starting to return to their lives. So I think the film was a form of group therapy for them”, the director noted. Returning after ten years, Sibel Bilgin discovered that older people still speak with the same intensity about the quake, often using the same words. “The Turkish government focused on repairing the damages to the infrastructure and in restoring the landscape. But the collective trauma of the people continues to exist. No one speaks of it in public, because the conservative point of view is that God is the one who meets out good and evil. The quake is seen as a punishment ,when the shadow of the loss of a relative or a neighbor is cast”. One of the most shocking elements the director discovered on comparing images from the two documentaries is that the buildings destroyed by the quake still exist, ten years later. The only difference is that after the quake they have been painted and are up for sale.
Sandrine Feydel’s The Mermaids’ Tears: Oceans Of Plastic explores the truths about the pollution of the ocean and marine life by plastic, as well as the myths about recycling this material. As she said, 1/3 of the total amount of plastic consumed globally, is only used once. Consequently, most of it winds up in the ocean, and enters the food chain through fish and birds. “The plastics industry claims that this material is safe, that it is recycled and it doesn’t cause any harm. We see that this is wrong, in the documentary”, the director noted. An important issue raised in the film is the recycling of plastic. “The largest amounts of plastic that is recycled are found in Europe, Canada and the USA, where they buried or burned. But many times the amounts we believe are being recycled end up being amassed and shipped to India or China. It’s just another industry. In Asia and Africa there are no recycling facilities, meaning that tons of plastic end up in the ocean”. According to scientific research presented in the documentary, every square kilometer of the ocean contains an average of 74,000 pieces of plastic. In Holland, scientists researching the disappearance of aquatic birds have found plastic in 95% of samples. In Germany, it has been proven that the chemicals released by plastic affect the reproduction of animals. In uninhabited islands in Hawaii, scientists have found plastic in the stomachs of dead birds, while in California environmentalists see more and more cases of whales and dolphins who died horribly from swallowing plastic. “Some people may say that plastic is part of general progress, for whose sake the deaths of some birds or fish don’t matter. But this is a material which breaks down into smaller and smaller parts, whose chemical components are found in the stomachs of small fish. These are food for bigger fish, which are finally consumed by humans. These chemicals are found in our blood, as is confirmed by research done on entire families by American scientists” she noted.
Then the subject of human rights was tackled, through Dirk Simon’s film When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun. He began shooting in 2004, initially filming the story of a 12 year old boy who was called upon to continue the 1,400 year old tradition of Tibetan kings. However, along the way the director turned his attention to the Tibetan’s struggle and the violation of human rights by China. When called upon to comment on what someone said in the film, comparing China with Nazi Germany, Dirk Simon explained that perhaps the word “holocaust” is associated with extreme genocide in our minds, but for someone who has lost his family it is not an exaggeration, even if this point of view is seen as provocative. He added: “The Chinese side unleashes incredible propaganda against the Dalai Lama. They claim, among other things that he cuts off the heads of Chinese people and uses their skin to decorate his house. Generally, there is the view that the Tibetans are ungrateful for all the Chinese people have given them. Another piece of propaganda is the touting of all the public works that China has built in Tibet. The question is, who benefits from these infrastructures? The answer is China itself, which is exploiting the wealth producing resources of the area.” The director also noted the bad conditions in Tibet. “The Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 could have been a chance for the international community to learn about what is happening in Tibet. But no one listens to them anymore, no one cares”. And he added: “We can practice yoga to solve our problems, but we don’t look at Tibet. The fact that we are doing nothing about a state that has been going on for 60 years means we have blood on our hands too”. When asked about what western societies can do, the director suggested that people put pressure on politicians, who will have to count the political cost to them, to pressure the government of China. “There are financial interests, that’s why the great powers close their eyes. They go along because they believe that we are more interested in the cheap Chinese goods than in our ideals. If politicians see that they have something to gain, if they have political gains, they will look into the subject of Tibet”, he concluded.
