Environmental Film Festival Australia - Looking After Our Food
Tasmanian beekeepers Bob Davey and Hedley Hoskinson are serious about protecting precious, honey-producing, leatherwood rainforests which are essential to the island state’s unique food industry.
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Mark Pearce
Watch Looking After Our Food on the filmmaker’s webstie
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
There are a few key reasons why we decided to make this film. It was part of an environmental campaign for the Wilderness Society to start the conversation around the importance of Tasmanian old-growth forests and its leatherwood understory, and how community leaders are protecting these forests.
Once we found passionate beekeepers, Bob Davey and Hedley Hoskinson, who are part of a frontline effort to monitor and maintain vast pockets of leatherwood trees, it was critical to tell their story because they are pressing hard to gain access to areas of this critical resource.
Another reason to bring this story to light is because the forestry industry and unions agreed to the protection of key leatherwood forests through the historic Tasmanian Forest Agreement in 2012; however, the laws that delivered this agreement have since been overturned.
And importantly, the leatherwood tree is the foundation for Tasmania’s four-million-dollar honey industry - accounting for 70% of all honey produced in Tasmania. Without maintaining the existing leatherwood forests, this vital Australian resource will be compromised and have disastrous flow-on effects to the agriculture industry.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
This is a story about the need for wise resistance against greed. There’s two inspirational beekeepers living in Tasmania who are connected with nature. These men represent knowledge. So, in a profound way you will be moved by their wisdom and understandings of why we need the very thing we are destroying.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
The theme and image system focuses on the security of our local, fresh food. The current globalization of food supply in the interest of foreign corporations and free trade agreements (FTAs) is a crime against the environment; it’s a crime against humanity and a crime against our coming generations.
So, the connection between the personal and universal themes lies in what’s really at stake for two Tasmanian beekeepers. They want us to retain the knowledge and understanding between honey bees and leatherwood trees, before it’s too late.
Without leatherwood trees there’s no leatherwood honey, no beekeeping industry, diminished pollination of fruits and vegetables, reduction in agricultural production, a further diminishing of Tasmania's 'clean green' image, and a possible increase in GM crops.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
It’s a two-hander personal profile style narrative about beekeepers, so it was about balancing screen time between both characters around the plot of the destruction of the leatherwood tree and how it’s affected them.
I stuck with the controlling issue of food security and its counter argument of money, money, money and let the story (like the structure of food) organically develop. Humour and emotional responses raised to the surface, so it felt authentic to also spotlight the sensibilities of a beekeeper.
During filming in the rain, which bees don’t enjoy, our executive producer, Warrick was stung on the face by a swarm of unpleased bees. The next day made for a memorable shoot when Warrick managed to bog our 4WD in the bee paddock. Most grandmothers would be proud of how Hedley the beekeeper rescued the production crew out of knee-deep Tasmanian mud. We’re not quite sure where Hedley gets his super-human strength from but we suspect it might have something to do with all that home-made leatherwood honey he eats.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The film was originally released online and at the time went viral. We have entered the film into a handful of enviro festivals… it was awarded runner up for best short documentary at the 2016 Tasmanian Eco Film Festival and the film won the Audience Choice Award at the Doctors for the Environment screening early this year. Most people enjoy the film and feel it’s the right length for the message it serves.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
Not really, the beekeepers are eccentric fellows and we knew they would captivate audiences from all corners of the debate. It’s interesting how many people have said they understood little about the importance of bees. People are obviously taking away the educational side of the story which is fantastic because this is a motive in all my work – to create stories that bring about the hidden values of nature in our collective conscious.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
There’s no actual goal to achieve here other than for us to ask ourselves what sort of a future do we really want? It’s fabulous that platforms like ‘We Are Moving Stories’ exist so we can hold conversations about important issues that matter. Issues that don’t get enough airtime via the corporate state media channels. Perhaps ‘Moving Stories’ can genuinely be moving in the near future using on-camera style interviews that feature filmmakers and storytellers to engage even more audiences on immersive levels?
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We need the Tasmanian government to come on board and stop the destructive deforestation of old-growth forests in Tasmania so the leatherwood tree can flourish and bees can continue to pollinate its beautiful flowers. If this happens, we can all continue to enjoy healthy, fresh foods and a local food community that can thrive. We also need reassurance in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Plan that the access and flexibility required by the beekeepers will take place. This was addressed by government but has still not occurred to date.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
Personally, I would like to see films like this bring us all closer to the higher realms of thinking (and feeling) more about nature and our reciprocal reliance and connection with it.
From a top-down perspective I would like to see significant reform on legal rights for nature. If we give nature legal rights, such as personhood, it means the law can see nature as a legal person, which will create rights that can be enforced. The current problem we have is that money and time is spent by organisations and individuals to lobby governments and force their signatures to implement plans to save nature, but all this hard work can be undone in the foul swoop of an election outcome, or the replacement of a Minister, and hence, all good intentions can easily be reversed and justified by a man-made concept called money. See also Babylonian money magic system and how modern ‘commercial law’ is based on Ancient Babylonian codes.
It’s our responsibility as human beings of the planet to protect our environment. We just need to say to each other and remind one another ‘we are capable of this,’ ‘this is what we want,’ and from that affirmation, collectively this is what we can be. Bob and Hedley (the beekeepers) are shining examples of this positive energetic encoding, and verification that being a nature guardian is great for the soul.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Do we want to empower ourselves in the future and eat local, healthy food, or be
bullied and short-changed by buying it from corporations elsewhere?
Would you like to add anything else?
We shouldn’t be saving nature, we should be looking after it.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
At the moment, I’m working with a colleague on an independent feature film titled ‘We ARE’ a story about traditional wisdom keepers and spiritual thinkers from around the globe who honor and remember who we are and what we can become.
I’m also at the completion stage of “The Message of the Lyrebird”. This has been six years in the making. Anyone interested in investing or funding the completion stage of this film is most welcome to contact me! It’s a social/nature feature film in the tone of a ‘mystery/history’ genre about the importance and sophistication of the lyrebird. Through people who love the lyrebird, including scientists, a lyrebird study group, a sound recordist, a lyrebird keeper, and our Indigenous People of the lyrebird, we go deep into Australia’s native rain forests (with spy cams and blue-chip nature footage) to investigate its life, its song and dance routines, its imitation of other birds and animals of the forest, as well as the incorporation of unnatural sounds within its repertoire, and we ask; what does this mean for humanity?
Interview: October 2017
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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
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Looking After Our Food
Tasmanian beekeepers Bob Davey and Hedley Hoskinson are serious about protecting precious, honey-producing, leatherwood rainforests which are essential to the island state’s unique food industry.
Length:
6 minutes
Director:
Mark Pearce
Producer:
Mark Pearce
Writer:
Mark Pearce
About the writer, director and producer:
Mark Pearce is a director, writer, producer at his production company, Balangara Films in Melbourne, Australia. He creates stories for social and political change and has worked on successful environmental campaigns which have gone viral, been distributed to the worldwide educational market and won international acclaim at enviro film festivals throughout Europe, the United States and Australia.
Key cast:
Bob Davey / Hedley Hoskinson
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists)
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BalangaraFilms/
Other:
http://www.saveyourleatherwoodhoney.com
Funders:
The Wilderness Society Inc. / The Wilderness Society Tasmania
Made in association with:
The Wilderness Society Inc. / The Wilderness Society Tasmania
Where can I see it in the next month?
Environmental Film Festival Australia
Sunday, October 15, 2017 8:15pm 10:15pm
ACMI Federation Square, Flinders St Melbourne Australia