Synopsis for the Film
Film: Atlantis Approaching
Country: Tuvalu/New Zealand
Director: Elizabeth Pollock
Duration: 51 min
Category: Considering Climate
As debate rages furiously on whether the phenomenon of global warming is a valid reality, Academy award-winning film-maker Elizabeth Pollock takes us on a journey to ground-zero- the tiny Polynesian island of Tuvalu which faces the terrifying prospect of being the first sovereign nation to be completely submerged and rendered from tropical paradise to inhospitable wasteland under the dangerously rising sea levels. Creeping tides, erosion, shifting storm patterns, salt-water intrusion into their traditional crops, large scale migration- these are the realities of the present day Tuvalu as it tries to negotiate the threat of the sea with its own desire to modernize. With a quirky eye for detail Director Pollock soaks into the everyday life on the colorful coral atolls and weaves in interviews with the natives and the experts as she rings out a cautionary tale of a nation in danger for the world to pay heed to.
Distinctions
Wild Wet Film Festival
Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival
EarthVision Environmental Film & Video Festival
EcoArts Conference 2007
Ecocinema International Film Festival
More Details
Elizabeth Pollock trained in documentary-video production at U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, where she completed a Master of Journalism degree in 2002. Her first documentary project, Indiana Aria, won a Student Academy Award in 2003, and her current documentary, Atlantis Approaching, was produced with a Fulbright Scholarship to New Zealand. Before heading to California to learn video production in 2000, Pollock had a previous career as a magazine foodwriter and editor in Chicago.
