Forum for the Defense of the Ceará Coast – Brazil

EJF has helped develop new skills in video production that enable them to produce documentary films for use in political and public advocacy efforts.

EJF has provided an introduction to the technical skills required to operate a video camera; together with practical experience in planning, filming and editing a finished film, together with guidance on distribution and broadcast. An introduction to the technical aspects of video was followed by joint field investigations to remote coastal areas, where the team gathered the visual images and interviews needed.

Although the Forum clearly had an insight into the environmental and social issues prior to the field work, the process of formally researching, interviewing and filming proved a valuable exercise in learning how to gather and assemble valuable information for public release. It also enabled the participants to strategize and prioritize the issues as part of their wider advocacy.

The outcome of the original training was a 15-minute film, "Mangroves and shrimp farming in Brazil - a violation of the green". The film has received wide coverage across the region and has been broadcast on Brazilian television, at no cost to either the Forum or EJF.

More recent collaborative efforts have seen EJF and The Forum for the Defense of the Ceará Coast produce the film ‘Es Tudo Mentira / It’s all a Lie’, shot on the east coast of Brazil where a proposal for a shrimp farm the size of London's Heathrow Airport would turn coastal forests into a virtual wasteland, destroying sustainable livelihoods and threatening marine habitats, home to endangered humpback whales and marine turtles. All too often the promise of jobs and a better life deludes marginalised coastal communities into thinking the shrimp farming industry is the answer to their problems. The film will be used to show the local community in the area under threat that the shrimp farm might not be all it claims to be.