The Pacific nation of Kiribati is forecast to be the first country in the world to disappear as a result of climate change. Sea-level rise, coastal erosion and drought are threatening the lives of 110,000 people spread over 33 atolls in this impoverished remote corner of the Pacific. The Hungry Tide, the latest documentary from internationally renowned filmmaker Tom Zubrycki, focuses on this vulnerable community on the frontline of climate change. It tells the story of one woman's mission to save her sinking homeland.
Maria Tiimon is the only one of her thirteen siblings to leave her native island of Beru. Maria now lives in Sydney, where she works for an NGO raising awareness of climate change issues in the Pacific. The documentary follows Maria as she goes from talking to schools and community groups, to travelling with her NGO delegation to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (COP15). Copenhagen, however, ends in failure, and evidence emerges of Australia's' complicity in silencing the Pacific nations.
Back in Sydney, the challenge for Maria is finding a balance between advocacy work, her personal life and the ever-growing needs of her own family back on the islands. (Commissioned by SBS) (Documentary) G CC |
