Moderation: Andrea Thilo
Speaker: Rolf Lindemann, District Administrator of the Oder-Spree District
Schedule:
Presentation of the youth project WITHOUT BORDERS
Break (20 min)
Film screening DER WALDMACHER, followed by film discussion
With director Volker Schlöndorff and actress Katja Riemann
The Forest Maker
In 1981, the Australian Tony Rinaudo arrives in Niger as a young agronomist to fight the growing spread of deserts and the misery of the population. Radical clearing has left the land desolate and once fertile soils depleted. But Rinaudo’s attempts to stop the desert by planting trees fail and almost all his seedlings die back. Then he notices an enormous root network under the supposedly dead soil – a discovery that results in an unprecedented greening campaign and gives countless people new hope.
OSCAR winner Volker Schlöndorff dedicates his first documentary to the life’s work of Tony Rinaudo, who has been practising and processing a simple cutting technique for decades together with farmers in several African countries. The film shows people doing extraordinary things and teaches us the value of community, of self-empowerment and of hope.