END:CIV

Overview

END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: "If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?" The causes underlying the collapse of civilizations are usually traced to overuse of resources. As we write this, the world is reeling from economic chaos, peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, and political turmoil. Every day, the headlines re-hash stories of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. We don't have to make outraged demands for the end of the current global system—iit seems to be coming apart already. But acts of courage, compassion and altruism abound, even in the most damaged places. By documenting the resilience of the people hit hardest by war and repression, and the heroism of those coming forward to confront the crisis head-on, END:CIV illuminates a way out of this all-consuming madness and into a saner future. Backed by Jensen's narrative, the film calls on us to act as if we truly love this land. The film trips along at a brisk pace, using music, archival footage, motion graphics, animation, slapstick and satire to deconstruct the global economic system, even as it implodes around us. END:CIV illustrates first-person stories of sacrifice and heroism with intense, emotionally-charged images that match Jensen's poetic and intuitive approach. Scenes shot in the back country provide interludes of breathtaking natural beauty alongside clearcut evidence of horrific but commonplace destruction. END:CIV features interviews with Paul Watson, Waziyatawin, Gord Hill, Michael Becker, Peter Gelderloos, Lierre Keith, James Howard Kunstler, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Rod Coronado, John Zerzan, Steven Best, Aric McBay, George Poitras, Shusli, Zoe Blunt, Dru Oja Jay, Maya Rolbin-Ghanie, Shannon Walsh, Macdonald Stainsby, and Mike Mercredi.

Author Biography

Franklin Lopez is the force behind subMedia.tv, a radical video channel that specializes in experimental news, politically charged viral videos and activist films. Frank's regular news show, It's the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine, is watched by thousands of loyal fans. Derrick Jensen, hailed as the philosopher poet of the ecological movement, is the widely acclaimed author of Endgame, A Language Older Than Words, Songs of the Dead, and How Shall I Live My Life? among many others. Author, teacher, activist, and leading voice of uncompromising dissent, he regularly stirs auditoriums across the country with revolutionary spirit. He lives in Crescent City, California. Lierre Keith is a writer, small farmer, and radical feminist activist. She is the author of The Vegetarian Myth (PM Press) and co-author of Deep Green Resistance. She splits her time between Northampton, MA and Humboldt, CA. Gord Hill is a member of the Kwakwaka'wakw nation on the Northwest Coast. He has been involved in Indigenous resistance, anti-colonial and anti-capitalist movements for many years and is the author of 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance (PM Press). Stephanie McMillan creates the comic strip Minimum Security five days a week for United Media's comics.com, and her hard-hitting political cartoons have been published in dozens of publications internationally. She co-authored, with Derrick Jensen, the graphic novel As the World Burns and illustrated the children's book Mischief in the Forest (PM Press). Peter Gelderloos is a radical community organizer. He is the author of How Nonviolence Protects the State and Consensus: A New Handbook for Grassroots Political, Social, and Environmental Groups.  He is the co-facilitator of a workshop on the prison system, and is also involved in independent media, copwatching, anti-oppression work, and anarchist organizing.