This year’s Labor Goes to the Movies film series presents a group of films—documentary and fiction—that take the threat of apocalypse as their premise. The threat of global climate change has given apocalyptic scenarios more mainstream girth, but filmmakers have been documenting and imagining man-made end times for years. The featured films depict nuclear confrontation, resource wars, tampering with ecological balance, or nature’s metaphysical revenge. They are meant to stimulate discussion about options for future actions.
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE(
(2004, Austria-France-Belgium-Germany,
Hubert Sauper)
This 2004 documentary, the first film by Hubert Sauper, explores the catastrophic ecological and economic consequences of the introduction by Europeans of the predatory Nile perch into Lake Victoria, Tanzania. The neocolonialist inequalities are compounded by the devastation of the lake ecosystem as well as the native fishing economy, even as the perch are commercially harvested for sale in European supermarkets. Other elements captured in the film include international gun-running and the scourge of AIDS. Nominated for an Academy Award, and the winner of numerous other awards, the film presents in stark images the nexus of military, economic, and ecological forces convulsing one African region.
Door opens at 6pm.A discussion will follow the film.Light refreshments provided.
