One Word
We are not drowning. We are fighting.
Short-Synopsis
„One Word“ is a participatory documentary about the impacts of Climate Change. The movie was developed and filmed with the inclusion of Marshallese People through film workshops that ran over a period of nine months. Most parts of the Marshall Islands are less than 5.9 feet above sea level. Negative forecasts predict the uninhability of the islands by 2050. The filmmakers trusted the Marshalese people to be the only reliable experts when it comes to the story of their land.
Long-Synopsis
The greenhouse gas emissions of the industrial societies will most likely destroy the ancient culture of the Marshall Islands. This is not only a local event, but also a universal warning to all people on earth. Using the fate of the Marshall Islands as an example, the filmmakers were able to demonstrate the impact of global warming and rising sea levels. It was particularly important for Viviana and Mark Uriona not to go to the Marshall Islands as filmmakers from the first world and make a film about those affected. They followed a participatory approach. They got to know the people on site, developed the film project together with them and therefore enabled a kind of empowerment. This unique approach to mutual exploration has resulted in an exciting, vivid and highly charged documentary that captures the most important topic of our time.
Directors Note
In search for a new project we stumbled over the situation in Marshall Islands and it caught our attention immediately because here again we found people who need and want to fight against a seemingly unsolvable problem.We liked to get to know these people, to support them and to introduce them to a bigger audience. We are showing one example of the climate change and its impact on people. It is a warning of what will happen to all of us in one way or another when we continue to just try and get along. We want to make people act.
Directors Biography
Viviana Uriona was born in 1973 in Pergamino (Province of Buenos Aires). She is living in Germany since 1996. She graduated in political science, studying first at the University of Cologne, later at the Free University of Berlin. At the University of Potsdam, she is currently finishing her doctorate in social movements and community radios in Latin America. She was engaged in the free radio scene, both in Germany and in transnational projects.
In 2015 Viviana and Mark Uriona released the documentary for Cinema "No Rest. No Haste", a movie about the battle over the land between the indigenous population of Argentina and the transnational agribusinesses. In 2012 they released the documentary „Sachamanta“ – about community radio stations in northern Argentina and their role in defending the land of the indigenous communities against land grabbing.
Both of these movies were produced within a participatory approach.
Director of Photographys Biography
Mark Uriona was born in 1975. He learned how to walk in Mozambique and was raised in East Germany. During an exchange year in the U.S.A., a very special person lent him an old Nikomat that he never gave back. Uriona went nuts on photography. But he did not believe that it could earn any bread. He studied law and worked as a research consultant for a member of the German federal parliament. He came to write speeches, essays, newspaper articles, and is learned the business of politics, which he has never come to like. With others he founded the “Kameradists” in 2011. Uriona was a member of the editorial staff of the “Prague Spring”, has worked for “Geo Season”, the project “Bosnian voices” and the Helmholtz Association and is publishing a selection of his photographs at www.kameradist-wagner.de
Producers Biography:
Maria Kling worked at the local television station rbb after having completed a master's degree in Communication Sciences and Journalism at the Freie Universität Berlin. In October 2015 the Studio Kalliope GmbH was founded. Maria Kling started to be it's managing director. The Studio produced 2016/2017 the documentary “Por los Camiones del Sur” - the stories of six musicians trying to get along and feed their families by playing in intercity busses in southern Mexico.
Crew
Editor DALIA CASTEL Sound design JULIAN CROPP and JOHANNES KUNZ Animation QUINN QIAN Subtitles SVEN KIRSCHLAGER Music by BORIS LÖBSACK Additional Music by DOTA and RADIOHEAD and JETHRO TULL and VOLODIA and NEW MODEL ARMY and FRENCH FOR RABBITS and MICA and THE EBEYE HIGH SCHOOL BAND and THE ALWAL STRING BAND and DAVID TODD Crew in the RMI MATOL BEAJA and HANSEN KAISHA and KELLY L. SEBASTIAN and CHRISTIAN SEBASTIAN and DANIELSON "DANYBOY" PERDON TAWOJ Local Chief Advisor JINA DAVID Political Advisor MICHAEL LEUTERT