Our climate is changing, our seas are rising. In Bangladesh up to Thirty Million people may be displaced by the end of the century. This is the story of one country fighting against the tide. A documentary film by Daniel Price, Adrien Taylor, Samuel Walls and Michael Roberts.
A climate change documentary made by Kiwi film-makers for the United Nations will get a global premiere today.
Thirty Million examines the threat posed to the people of Bangladesh by rising sea levels.
The country is considered the most vulnerable in the world to climate change, and is predicted tolose 17 per cent of its land by the end of the century, displacing 30 million people.
Premiere screenings are being held at the UN Headquarters in New York City and in Christchurch today.
The filmmakers talked to those affected, telling their story through the lens. Photo / ThirtyMillionFilm.org
They'll also be held throughout the rest of June in Wellington and Auckland, and will be made available to 150 United Nations Development Programme offices around the world.
The film will also be launched online so people can live stream the global premiere.
The film was co-directed by New Zealand-based Adrien Taylor and UK-based climate scientist Dr Daniel Price, and features UNDP head and former Prime Minister Helen Clark.
"Doing a world premiere with your friends in your living room is an engaging and low-carbon way to get the film out there to as many people as possible at once," says Dr Price.
The controversial shipwrecking industry along the coast near Chittagong is a photographic icon of Bangladesh. Photo / ThirtyMillionFilm.org
"Thirty Million is a non-commercial labour of love. None of us are being paid to make it; we just want people to see it."
They say the amount of people who could be affected is almost 10 times the amount of people who have fled Syria during its crisis, and the issue has been tagged by the Pentagon as "a major threat to global security and peace".
The documentary was made to give the people of Bangladesh a voice and to show people in the West how what happens there will affect us here.
"These people have contributed virtually nothing to the problem of climate change, yet are facing the harshest punishment for our actions, or rather: inaction," says Taylor.
"Although we can pass it off as their problem, the point is it's morally our problem right now."
