Earth Protectors: An artist’s tribute to those fighting to preserve our planet

Earth Protectors: An artist’s tribute to those fighting to preserve our planet

Cast: Anne De Carbuccia, Tashi Bista, Julie Pullen, Jared Cairuna Cauper, Dasha Filippova, Maxim Savchenko, Liliana Rodriguez Cortes, Mariasole Bianco, Roberto Ambrosini, Pilar Pandini, Alexandria Villasenor (as themselves) 

Critic’s Rating: 4 Stars out of 5

Director: Anne De Carbuccia

Duration: 1 hour, 36 minutes

Genre: Documentary Language: English, Spanish (with subtitles)

Release Date: 2023

What’s it about? A riveting documentary about an artist’s creative and compassionate efforts to address climate change and its impact on remote communities.

Review:

While the world’s political leaders continue to stall on taking a good hard look at Climate Change, here is a documentary that highlights the issue in a most striking, creative and revelatory way. Established French artist Anne De Carbuccia takes us on an intriguing and unsettling odyssey of her travels across diverse and remote places on earth. In so doing, she displays through photography and artwork just how Global Warming is affecting various peoples, their cultures, livelihoods and very survival.

Anne christens these brave souls, who at the forefront of nature’s backlash to global pollution, as “Earth Protectors”. First among these unsung heroes whom she interviews is Tashi Bista, who belongs to the Himalayan Samzdong tribe. There’s trouble in his once fertile and thriving homeland of Upper Mustang, where the melting of the glaciers in the region is causing forced migration. Anne then takes us to the Peruvian Amazon, where a member of the Shipibo tribe named Jared Cairuna Cauper, carries out his role of traditional “forest protector” against massive deforestation by timber-merchants and the cacao-raising drug mafia.

Anne’s globe-trotting feet next take her to Siberia, where forest fires have ravaged large swathes of the tundra landscape. Here, the pure water of Lake Baikal stands as a symbol of hope and resilience against aqua-contamination. Anne strikes up meaningful conversations with local environmental activists Dasha Filippova and Maxim Savchenko, the latter of who points out that clean water will only be truly valued once it starts to dwindle. Our host’s following destination is North Africa which is severely tarnished with climate refugees of its own.

Also featuring in her documented interactions is the knowledgeable American environmental expert Julie Pullen who expounds on the dangerous geo-political impact that depleting natural resources could cause. Meanwhile, Italian Marine Biologist Mariasole Bianco explains the horrifying effect that plastic waste is having on ocean life, which she says accounts for 80% of the planet’s living species. Joining the cause is Mexican community advocate Liliana Rodriguez Cortes, who explains her role as liaison between the U.N. and an organisation that collects data on the health of marine creatures.

In her epic journey traversed 10 whole years, Anne goes from being a mere artist to a cultural investigator and environmental activist and spokesperson. As she admits, “I realised my art had a voice”, especially in reference to her positive impression on school children across Europe and the U.S. Integral to her artwork is a calling card, or as she terms it “an installation”, marking her visits to overly endangered places. These are a creative hodgepodge of unique things from the concerned location juxtaposed with Anne’s own symbolic items. Such are their attractiveness, that her exhibitions in major cities draw large crowds. Proceeds from these events go toward her foundation One Planet, One Future, which aids the Earth Protectors.

This is one of the most relevant and important environmental documents of our time. It is right up there with Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Home (2009). While the rich cinematography is captivating, some of the sound bytes seem a bit extraneous. The film’s bombardment of information is another minor detraction. And while some respondents offer solutions to the climate crisis, Anne could have confronted law-makers on the subject for a more compelling conclusion. Still, Earth Protector is an incisive meditation on how art can be used as an enlightening and unifying force when Climate Change is tearing us apart.