Taking on Tarmageddon - The Movie

Back in our April 2010 Tar Sands magazine, we covered the the vast destructiveness entailed in the extraction of expensive oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. Now, activist filmmakers Cambell Road Productions have made a documentary about eight student activists from the UK going out to see first hand the industrialization of the wilderness and the trashing of indigenous people's land and ways of life.

As Jess Worth explained in her keynote, Taking on Tarmageddon, 'The effort to shut down the tar sands is shaping up to be one of the iconic struggles of our age'. As well as the inevitable environmental chaos that the project entails it is also hugely damaging to the people who live nearby, notably the Beaver Lake Cree.

In the film, also called Taking on Tarmageddon, student activists from the People & Planet network meet the Beaver Lake Cree first nation who live right in the middle of what has been called both the biggest and the most destructive industrial project on Earth. The documentary follows each of the students through their investigations documenting their experiences, thoughts and emotions on seeing the impacts of tar sands oil extraction. Here is Taking on Tarmageddon trailer

As the project has progressed, the students have been posting regular video blogs from Canada over on vimeo on the people they've met and the actions and adventures they've had.

The filmmakers of Taking on Tarmageddon are crowd-financing the project and hoping to get contributions on their fundraising page. If they can make their target the film will be released this year. I strongly encourage you to donate to make Taking on Tarmageddon the movie a reality.

Tar Sands Campaigning Resources

• UK Tar Sands Network campaigns in partnership with Indigenous communities affected by the Tar Sands oil developments in Canada.
• Indigenous Environmental Network empower indigenous nations and communities towards sustainable livliehoods.
• The New Internationalist Tar Sands magazine covers many of the important issues that the tar sands project involves.
• Jess Worth talking about tar sands campaigning in a recent Radio New Internationalist Tar Sands podcast.