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Uranium
( English / 48
min. )
Country :
Canada
Production Co. :
National Film Board of Canada
(NFBC)
Producer/Director :
Dale Phillips and Magnus
Isacsson |
Uranium from Canada’s Radium city mines was used to
make the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Today the Canadian federal government
requires that it only be said for peaceful purposes. But,
claims this disturbing documentary, the pollution from
uranium waste has become a time bomb for Canada’s
native people, and threatens to be almost as devastating
as those dropped to end the Second World War. By the
year 2000, 300 tonnes of uranium waste, containing
radioactive by-products which contaminate local water
supplies, will have been dumped on land traditionally
used by the Mohawk. Greed and chauvinism have
triumphed over the collective wisdom of Canada’s native
population.
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Socotra: Island of Dragon’s
Blood
( English / 15 min. )
Country : Yemen
Production Co. : Acacia Productions
Producer/Director : Edward Milner
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The island of Socotra off the Yemeni coast is home to
over 750 plant and tree species - 250 of them endimic.
In 1992 the island was visited by an international team
of scientists and botanists. Edward Milner’s short
documentary, follows the expedition, recording their
efforts to catalogue and evaluate Socotra’s
extraordinary genetic wealth. The back of the
bizarre-looking Dragon’s Blood tree has special value.
Used in ancient times by Byzantine emperors to sign
their names, today it is pounded and heated to make
incense, pigments and medicines. More significantly, all
the botanic specimens found here are highly resistant to
drought, a genetic quality ideal for habitat restoration
with enormous potential for other drought-prone parts of
the world.
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