Paul Watson - Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Paul Watson - Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist |
| Original title | Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist |
| Country of production | Canada |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2011 |
| length | Cinema: 90 minutes DVD: 86 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Jay Brown |
| script | Timothy Wade Huntley |
| production | Peter Jay Brown, Ron Moler, Martin Kistler |
| music | Drew Schnurr |
| camera | Daniel Fernandez, Tim Gorski, James Joyner, Jonathan David Kane, Rip Odebralski |
| cut | Timothy Wade Huntley, Chris Hume |
| occupation | |
Paul Watson - Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist (Original title: Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist ) is a 2011 documentary by filmmaker Peter Jay Brown about environmental activist Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) founded by him .
content
Peter Jay Brown began filming their actions as a cameraman for NBC television station Paul Watson and the SSCS in 1982 , later joining the organization himself and eventually becoming its first officer on board. From his point of view and with film recordings from three decades, the documentary shows a review of the development of Watson and his organization.
At the age of ten, Paul Watson was already sabotaging beaver traps in his home country. Large Watson became famous in 1976, when he and Bob Hunter against the hunting of harp seals demonstrated and both featured on an ice floe before the ride trough a Canadian icebreaker, they thus forced to stop. This event is considered by many to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Both have become more and more popular over the years and they are now being compared to Henry David Thoreau and John Muir . Hunter became a book author and Toronto news anchor for Citytv and hosted Hunter's Gatherings for CP24 . Watson became increasingly dissatisfied with the, in his opinion, too passive approach of the environmental organization Greenpeace , for which he had been an activist since 1971, and founded his own organization in 1977, which later became the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Their approach they describe themselves as "aggressive non-violence" ( aggressive nonviolence ) and invoke it on Martin Luther King .
In 1986 two SSCS machinists succeeded in sinking two ships of the Icelandic whaling fleet in the port of Reykjavík by opening their sea valves on board. A whaler later sent the SSCS a video showing the two sunk ships completely renovated and ready for use, as well as two other whaling ships. Thereupon it was decided to set course for Iceland and ram all four whaling ships in the harbor in one fell swoop. But already at the level of the Newfoundland Bank, the port motor on the ship exploded and made their destination unreachable. By chance they came across a fleet of illegal fishing vessels that were circumventing Canada's cod fishing ban . Watson began with his ship to destroy their nets and ram ships. Although everything was observed by the Canadian authorities for days, no politician wanted to obtain the arrest of Watson because he was basically only enforcing the observance of Canadian law. It was not until all of Watson's fishing vessels were chased away that the Canadian Coast Guard came on board, towed the ship and took Watson into custody for charges in St. John's, Newfoundland, of ramming a ship. Watson was acquitted after two weeks and the Ministry of Fisheries has been sending out patrol vessels to evict illegal fishermen ever since. The campaign called “Cod War” in the media made Watson a Canadian national hero.
Every year in March, harp seals visit the ice surfaces in Eastern Canada 's Gulf of Saint Lawrence , where they give birth to their offspring, as the ice offers them protection from sharks and orcas . The only thing is that they have no protection there from human hunters, so the members of the SSCS sprayed the seals with harmless paint to make their fur no longer commercially usable. The organization was so successful that the Canadian Parliament passed a seal protection act that did not allow anyone to approach seals within half a mile - with the exception of the hunters who kill the seals.
In Neah Bay , Brown explained how hunting completely eradicated the Atlantic gray whale and how the whales in the Pacific would have been eradicated today if the International Whaling Commission had not banned killing in 1949. However, the whales were removed from the endangered species list in 1994.
In the North Pacific , attention is drawn to driftnet fishing . Driftnets Up km to 280 be long and are called because they kill everything that gets caught in them, and about half of the killed animals (including also "curtains of death" seabirds , dolphins , octopuses and sea turtles ) so-called bycatch is that is thrown back into the sea as "waste". Driftnet fishing therefore represents the seas' greatest ecological problem. Driftnets are hauled in again with a so-called power block that hangs on the side of a ship. In a campaign, the SSCS destroyed the drift nets and the power block by scraping past the ships. The film recordings made of it met with great media interest, as a result of which a worldwide ban on drift fishing was decided in 1991, although it is still illegal today.
When Watson was in Germany in 1994, he received an invitation to a television debate in Norway and set off for Oslo on the ship Whales Forever with journalists on board . The Norwegian government had convicted Watson in absentia in 1992 on the assumption that he had sunk two Norwegian ships in port that were illegally operating as whalers. Brown clarifies that Watson was not responsible for this. The Norwegian warship Andenes Watson attempted to intercept in international waters . The Norwegian Navy fired twice with its on-board cannon at the ship with 42 people on board and detonated four depth charges in front of its hull. In addition, soldiers from the Andenes tried to block the propellers of the Whales Forever with a large rope . However, only the steering gear was damaged so badly that the ship could no longer be steered. When the Andenes finally tried to cut off the Whales Forever 's path by crossing her bow, the Whales Forever was unable to turn due to her defective steering gear and could not come to a stop in time. Thus, the rammed Whales Forever the Andenes at a critical location, resulting in damage to both ships. After this incident, the warship finally gave up and returned to port. According to the documentary's spokesman, several supporting girders were severed in the collision of the Norwegian warship Andenes .
When the Galápagos Islands marine reserve was looted by illegal fishing fleets, local park rangers asked the SSCS to help drive away the poachers. When they arrived, they met 15 illegal fishing vessels near Coconut Island . Several boats in the illegal fleet turned out to belong to a corrupt general in the Ecuadorian Navy , and when they arrived in the Galápagos four days later, a warship from the general was waiting for them. The general wanted to have Watson arrested, but when the Navy saw the media and cameras on board, they hurriedly escaped.
In the Faroe Islands , entire herds of pilot whales were shown being herded ashore and killed by the population. Since there was no need to hunt whales, the people are prosperous and the whale meat is also contaminated with mercury, they were asked why they didn't stop. They replied that it was just a tradition for them to kill whales.
Brown concludes that in three decades for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, no person has been killed or injured in an operation.
background
- Since the film was made from the perspective of Peter Jay Brown, it does not agree with all of Paul Watson's views. In the audio commentary, Brown points out that Watson, for example, disagreed with Brown's interpretation of the anti-seal protests. Brown, on the other hand, could not do anything with Watson's attitude towards vegetarianism or veganism .
- The first screening of the film was on February 2, 2011 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival , on May 17, 2011 a screening took place during the Cannes Film Festival and in Germany it was first shown on October 1, 2011 at the Hamburg Film Festival , where Brown and Watson were also present. In Germany, the documentary was released on November 10, 2011, in the USA the film had no theatrical release. On January 27, 2012, the film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray with additional audio commentary by Peter Jay Brown.
Reviews
“Documentary about the radical environmental activist Paul Watson, who is on his own as an“ eco-terrorist ”in the name of animal welfare on the oceans. Without stylizing him as a hero or turning a blind eye to the darker side of his commitment, he meets Watson's commitment against cruel and exploitative human behavior with clear sympathy. "
"Brown, who has been filming the Shepherds for 28 years and supporting them on deck, is not afraid of sarcasm, which gives the worst fight and battle scenes a much-needed grain of humor, as does the decidedly happy music."
“A documentary that is courageous and fun. [..] With their daring actions they are doing the job that the Coast Guard and Navy should do. Sinking ships is fun and it plays a big role in the Sea Shepherds and in the movie too. An eco-terrorist's confession is amusing, adventurous and startling at the same time. Refreshingly different, no complaints about dismay, no empty slogans. "
German production
The German version was produced by TV + Synchron Berlin .
Web links
- Paul Watson - Confessions of an Eco-terrorists in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Paul Watson - Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist in the Lexicon of International Films
- Internet presence for the film (English)
- Sea Shepherd Germany eV
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sea Shepherd sails in Cannes through a controversy with star cast on seashepherd.org ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 31, 2012
- ↑ "Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist" premiere in Hamburg - with Captain Paul Watson & Peter Brown on seashepherd.org ( memento of the original from November 26, 2011 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 31, 2012
- ↑ Theatrical release Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist on seashepherd.org ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 31, 2012
- ↑ Intro Magazin, Issue 197 of October 12, 2011
- ↑ http://aspekte.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/30/0,1872,8359102,00.html (no longer available), aspekte from October 21, 2011
