TOTW 24.05
Film Festival Cannes - DiCaprio: Climate Change can be reversed
Cinema for Peace honouree Leonardo DiCaprio used the global attention for his Tarantino film with Brad Pitt to premiere the climate change film Ice on Fire.
CANNES - Eight more years left until the point of no return to limit the temperature rise to two degrees. If we start to stop fossil fuels immediately and start innovation, we might still have a chance to reverse Climate Change- director Leila Conners presented with Leonardo DiCaprio, the documentary "Ice on Fire". The film was narrated and produced by DiCaprio and offers innovative solutions on many ways to reduce carbon. The current situation breaks down to a simple question in the film: "Are we going to let climate change destroy civilisation or are we going to use technologies that can reverse it?"
The amazing elections results in favour of the Green Party in the EU elections shows that the public wants to put a final end to the usage of fossil fuels.
Trailer: Ice on Fire by Leila Conners
Trump follows Bush: Iran next Iraq?
WASHINGTON - In 2015, the current US security adviser stated in an op-ed in The New York Times about Iran: “The inconvenient truth is that only military action ... can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.”
The Trump administration is building a war scenario with the help of Iranian leadership which keeps provoking. The US have increased military presence in the Gulf in response to what it claims to be threats from Iran. “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!”, Trump tweeted amid rising tensions.
Let’s remember: hundreds of thousands of civilians and over 4400 US soldiers died in the war in Iraq which found no weapons of mass destruction, destabilised several countries in the region including Syria, and created a power vacuum that gave rise to the creation of the Islamic State. When politicians use patriotism and war against “enemies” to win elections, they create a scenario along the lines of Machiavelli’s playbook, a mass enthusiasm for a “just war”, which brings death, destruction and calamities for civilians.
Dustin Hoffman evoked global headline news at Cinema for Peace one month before the Iraq invasion: “…If we go in and use what I have read to be 30.000 pounds of bombs in 43 minutes, and that’s who gets it - (the children), the mothers, and fathers ... I ask what happens after that?”. A question we can not answer even 15 years later with a country in shambles. In 2004, newspapers such as The New York Times shamefully apologized for enabling the Iraq war, but in 2019 there seem to be no lessons learned from it, minor actions by Iran are reported as a major threat. With the elections coming up next year, Trump may use this escalation to win a second term like Bush did by going to war.
Everybody who opposed the war in Iraq was labelled by the war machine as a traitor to his country. George Clooney said in 2006 when Cinema for Peace honoured his film “Good Night and Good Luck”: "...last time I was there for Cinema for Peace... just before the Iraq war, after walking in and coming home to the United States I was called a traitor to my own country. It made me a little angry and I wrote a film because of that. So you can honestly say that you were an active participant in us making this film."
Dustin Hoffman's speech at Cinema for Peace before the Iraq War
Trailer: Peshmerga (2016) by Bernard-Henri Lévy documents his experience as he travels to the front line between Iraqi Kurdista and ISIS troops.
Trailer: Argo (2012) by Ben Affleck talks about the story of the Iran Hostage Crisis.
Trailer: Good Night, And Good Luck by George Clooney
Modi wins a landslide victory after war threats between nuclear powers
India: A few months ago, sudden escalations in relations between India and Pakistan shook the world, some reports even predicting a third world war, as India and Pakistan became the first nuclear-armed nations to engage in direct conflict. The incident involved each nation’s air force trespassing the airspace and engaging in airstrikes.
Reports from both India and Pakistan suggested that the sudden attack by India in response to a bomb blast in Kashmir was actually a ploy by the government to use this tension as a means to political victory. The Prime Minister’s campaigns were spreading words of valour and glory, in relation to his attack on Pakistan. Last week, the Indian Elections concluded and Modi won a landslide victory with a tremendous majority. He called for an inclusive India in his victory remark - after the past Modi government was continuously criticised for attacks against minorities and being complicit with fringe groups lynching Dalit and Muslim minorities for storing and consuming beef in certain states.
The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, congratulated Modi and said that he is looking forward to working on peace in the region.
Trailer: Countdown to Zero (2010) by Lucy Walker talks about the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons and calls for it's abolishment