BLUE BURNING

90mins | Video Documentary | 03 October 2024
Director and Producer
:
Janet Solomon
Cinematographer and Editor:
Viki van den Barselaar-Smith
Original Music Score:
Jonathan M. Blair
Final Mix:
Johan Prinsloo

Synopsis

In this consummately crafted, painterly, and controversial documentary, the collaboration between filmmakers Janet Solomon and Viki van den Barselaar Smith brings their complementary skills to bear with great force on a significant and sinister aspect of South Africa’s economic development imaginary. The South African government, driven by a vision of a national petroleum company, is pushing for 30 new offshore oil and gas wells by 2030. This is the story of the growing social opposition to these plans, uniting fisher and traditional healer collectives, coastal communities, Indigenous groups, scientists, environmental NGOs, academics, and the general public in defence of the ocean commons and climate futures in what has been described as the biggest environmental campaign of South Africa's history. Expect a visually stunning, well-paced movie with a magnificent musical score.

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33mins | Documentary | 15 March 2018
Directed and produced by Janet Solomon
Vanishing Present Productions

Synopsis

Becoming Visible is a short multiscreen environmental documentary that explores the pressing issue of offshore oil and gas development off the South African coastline and its consequence to our marine life. It advances the theme of nature as political asset and questions the scripts of consumptive economics embedded in South Africa’s governmental approaches to environmental policy. The film focuses on a seismic survey off the east coast of RSA, which was extended into the whale migration season in July 2016. There were a number of unusual deepwater-mammal strandings during and after this survey. Becoming Visible investigates the risks posed by unilateral and indiscriminate traumatizing noise exposure from marine seismic surveys to many marine species, and the vulnerability of fishery-based livelihoods to these impacts.

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