2008 Films

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

• Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

  
  2008. USA. 81 mins. Directed by Lisa Merton, Alan Dater. Produced by Lisa Merton, Alan Dater.
  World Premiere

  This compelling film tells the story of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner who through the simple act of planting trees sparked a powerful political crusade to protect the environment, women’s rights, and democracy. After rural women described to her the human and environmental costs of rampant deforestation, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots tree-planting program that has restored the land, reduced soil erosion, and provided new food sources—and in the process empowered the previously disenfranchised women behind it. Dramatic scenes of political turmoil, chilling first-person accounts, and cinéma-vérité footage of tree nurseries and the people who tend them coalesce into a gripping portrait of a woman of unwavering determination and courage. EM

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