2014 CNEX 國際華人紀錄片影展

我買了一座雨林 I Bought a Rainforest     [台灣首映]

瑞典 Sweden / 2009 / 58 min / 導演 Director：Jacob ANDRÉN & Helena NYGREN

2010 加拿大Hot Docs紀錄片影展

誠品信義10/30,11:00 
 

熱帶雨林蘊藏了地球半數以上的生物，卻因為人類的砍伐，正在以每秒一公頃的速度消失中。

20年前，瑞典小學發起認購雨林的慈善活動，共計有超過40萬名小學生參加，雅各也是其中之一。20年後，他回想起這件事，小時候的捐款真正保護到雨林了嗎？他買的這些樹到底在哪裡？如今是否仍然安在？於是他決心走一趟，親自找到那座雨林……

Jacob Andrén, an ordinary kid going to school in the 80’s, was, as at many schools in the western world, involved in fundraising actions to save the rainforest. Their teachers urged them to help by buying a piece of forest. Now a grown up young man he is wondering about what happened to all those trees that he and his classmates bought with the money they made by selling stuff on the flea market. He remembers getting a certificate, but that was 20 years ago. Jacob decides to buy a plane ticket to try to find his trees and to find out if their effort did make a difference.

 He starts with looking for the old certificate but it is hard to trace. While searching, he learns that over 400.000 Swedish kids did buy trees in the rainforest as well, and even more kids in other countries. But is that forest of 20 years ago still there? And where? And what threats are these forests facing today. Jacob wants to find the answers. He manages to find his old teacher from primary school, who tells him the forest he helped saving is in Costa Rica. She tells him that the forest was said to be protected forever, but she is only a teacher and cannot promise him that it is still there. This is when Jacob decides to go tracing his trees and look for himself to see what has become of them.

I bought a rainforest shows that individual action can make a difference, it is at the same time a reflection on the freedom of childhood and about using that inspiration to make a change.