8-9 Nov. Green Ripple takes pleasure in inviting you to a free screening of Blue Burning One Ocean One Struggle: a documentary by Janet Solomon at EL Museum MCL Hall from 6.30pm.
Janet Solomon, an artist and leading anti-fossil fuel campaigner, has accepted an invite to use the Margaret Courtney Latimer community hall at the East London Museum to host two free showings of her fiery new documentary film Blue Burning at 6.30pm on Friday and Saturday, November 8 and 9.
She is being brought to the metro by the Green Ripple, a public interest group formed out of the global protest against Shell and the SA government’s attempt on December 1 2020 to conduct damaging and scientifically unresearched seismic blasting off the Wild Coast. This was seen as a precursor to bringing in Big Oil to mine this pristine stretch of sacred wilderness —with the potential of catastrophic consequences.
Solomon, a co-founder of the 40-organisation member SA alliance, Oceans Not Oil, was the first person to blow the whistle in the Eastern Cape on the frightening spectre of oil and gas operations off the Wild Coast when she gave an interview to the Daily Dispatch. The newspaper broke the story on November 4 2021, headlined, in capital letters: “Shell to blast Wild Coast”.
This was followed by the first public protest by “oceanators” — ocean lovers — in East London at Nahoon Reef, which would be followed by an unprecedented wave of 70 national and international protests against the oil and gas industry targeting the Wild Coast. The upheaval was led by Oceans Not Oil and then multiple other environmental and climate action groups. A petition on Change.org to halt seismic surveys by Shell and other fossil fuel miners drew 459,633 signatures.
Shell and the government’s oil and gas designs on the Wild Coast were finally brought to a halt by the Makhanda High Court, The Supreme Court of Appeal and Constitutional Court. But the “lawfare” from the fossil fuel sector continues.
Blue Burning premiered at Origins Centre at Wits University earlier this month as part of Solomon’s PhD art exhibition and will be submitted to local and international film festivals. The documentary has been described as consummately crafted, painterly, and controversial .
The film is a collaboration between filmmakers Solomon and Viki van den Barselaar Smith and brings their complementary skills to bear with great force on a significant and sinister aspect of SA’s economic development imaginary.
The SA government, driven by a vision of a national petroleum company, is pushing for 30 new offshore oil and gas wells by 2030. The documentary is the story of the growing social opposition to these plans, uniting fisher and traditional healer collectives, coastal communities, indigenous groups, scientists, environmental NGOs, academics, and the general public in defence of the ocean commons and climate futures in what has been described as the biggest environmental campaign of SA’s history.
Expect a visually stunning, well-paced movie with a magnificent musical score.
Solomon is a passionate environmental and climate activist, artist and award-winning filmmaker. Transcending the boundaries between activism and art, Solomon’s compelling interventionist approach includes forging links between collectives, mobilising public awareness, fostering collective action, and documentary film critique.
Her unique technique combines evocative auditory sequences with a painterly visual aesthetic. By making the extremity of unlivable conditions imposed by offshore petroleum development on those who live in and depend on the ocean understandable, Solomon’s process provokes public dialogue, and the imagination to envision another future and to advocate for it.
In a statement, the directors said: “Stopping offshore oil and gas development is an issue that matters utterly. To chronicle grassroots, citizen-led refusal of consent the breadth of a coastline is an enormous privilege. There is a palpable momentum against ocean injustice because it becomes climate injustice, affecting us all. Emissions, destruction, cultural dispossession, and injustice are not inevitable.
“Our coastline and its estuaries do not have to end up oiled, our seas do not have to absorb the costs of more CO2, nor should our sacred sea be despoiled. This oceans-not-oil resistance is transforming silence into language, bridging differences, and giving us grounds to act and define a future together.”
Contact: Green Ripple spokesperson Kevin Harris 083 656 0915 or email greenripplenews@gmail.com
Q & A afterwards with Janet Solomon. Contact: 043 743 0686.