Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space

Last updated
Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space
Pax americana.jpg
Directed by Denis Delestrac
Written by Denis Delestrac, Harold Crooks
Produced byLucie Tremblay, Jeremy Edwardes, Brice Garnier, ARTE France
Narrated byMikela Jay
Cinematography Jean-Pierre St-Louis
Edited byDavid LeGuerrier
Music by Amon Tobin
Distributed byFilms Transit International
Running time
85 minutes
CountryCanada – France
LanguageEnglish – French

Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space is a documentary film by Denis Delestrac with a music score by Amon Tobin. The film deals with the issue of space weapons and their politics, featuring interviews with several key United States military personnel, academics such as Noam Chomsky and others, including Martin Sheen. The film won the Best Documentary award at the 2009 Whistler Film Festival and has been selected in a number of international film festivals. [1] [2]

Contents

Synopsis

The prospect of Earth being ruled from space is no longer science-fiction. The dream of the original Dr. Strangelove, Wernher von Braun (from Nazi rocket-scientist to NASA director) has survived every US administration since World War II and is coming to life. Today the technology exists to weaponize space, a massive American industry thrives, and nations are maneuvering for advantage.

Production

Among the challenges faced by the production team was the difficulty to get the authorization to bring a camera inside the Air Force Space Command bases and other US military and government locations. After four months of investigation, the US Department of Defense's public relations office decided to grant Denis Delestrac and his crew the access to the locations they had requested. It is the first time most of the Air Force Space Command bases have been filmed by a civilian crew.

Locations

Interviews

Martin Sheen at an anti-war protest in October 2007 Martin sheen.jpg
Martin Sheen at an anti-war protest in October 2007

The film features interviews with prominent weaponization of space advocates, space policy analysts, politicians, diplomats, military officials and peace activists. The following individuals were interviewed for the film:

Versions

Theatrical version

The 85-minute theatrical version was screened at international film festivals since November 2009 and released in theaters across Canada in June 2010.

ARTE version

A 76-minute version, titled "Pax Americana ou la conquête militaire de l'espace", was created for French-German broadcaster and co-producer ARTE. It was broadcast in March 2010 and was followed by a debate on the weaponization of space including French TV host Annie-Claude Elkaïm with Samuel Black (Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington DC), Otfried Nassauer (Berlin Information Center for Transatlantic Security, Berlin) and Xavier Pasco (Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, Paris)

52 minutes version

A 52-minute version was edited for the French-Canadian public broadcaster Radio Canada (dubbed and narrated in French) and for the international TV market (in English).

CBC version

This 43-minute version, titled "Masters of Space", premiered on CBC-TV and repeated on CBC News Network in April 2010 as part of the scientific and environmental program "The Nature of Things", presented and narrated by acclaimed Canadian environmental activist David Suzuki.

Festivals and awards

Soundtrack

The original soundtrack was composed by electronic artist and DJ Amon Tobin who created the Pax Americana Theme and other exclusive tracks for the movie. Additionally, Pax Americana features a number of artists signed by the London-based label Ninja Tune like Coldcut, Blockhead, Bonobo and Neotropic as well as Montréal based DJ Champion.

Related Research Articles

Pax Americana is a term applied to the concept of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere and later in the world after the end of World War II in 1945, when the United States became the world's dominant economic and military power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amon Tobin</span> Brazilian musician

Amon Adonai Santos de Araújo Tobin, known as Amon Tobin, is a Brazilian electronic musician, composer and producer. He is noted for his unusual methodology in sound design and music production. He has released eight major studio albums under the London-based Ninja Tune record label. He has also released two albums under the alias Two Fingers with collaborator Doubleclick. His latest release, A Living Room , was released on September 23, 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Helms</span> Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force and a former NASA astronaut

Susan Jane Helms is a retired United States Air Force lieutenant general and NASA astronaut. She was the commander, 14th Air Force ; and commander, Joint Functional Component Command for Space at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kirtland Air Force Base</span> US Air Force base at Albuquerque, NM, US

Kirtland Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in the southeast quadrant of the Albuquerque, New Mexico urban area, adjacent to the Albuquerque International Sunport. The base was named for the early Army aviator Col. Roy C. Kirtland. The military and the international airport share the same runways, making ABQ a joint civil-military airport.

Mark Achbar is a Canadian filmmaker, best known for The Corporation (2003) and Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1994).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Caldicott</span> Australian physician, author and anti-nuclear advocate

Helen Mary Caldicott is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate. She founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, and military action in general.

Gary Tarn is a British filmmaker and composer.

Dawn Breakers International Film Festival (DBIFF) was an international travelling film festival held in various cities throughout the world from 2007-2015. The festival debuted in Phoenix, Arizona and was later held in San Diego, Houston and Zurich. DBIFF was recognized as an important festival and nominated at the 2014 annual list of MovieMaker's "Top 25 Film Festivals of the World" in the Social Cause category. Selected films from this festival has received theatrical distribution, television broadcast and four Academy Award nominations.

<i>RiP!: A Remix Manifesto</i> 2008 Canadian film

RiP!: A Remix Manifesto is a 2008 open-source documentary film about "the changing concept of copyright" directed by Brett Gaylor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010 Cannes Film Festival</span> Film festival

The 63rd Cannes Film Festival was held from 12 to 23 May 2010, in Cannes, France. The Cannes Film Festival, hailed as being one of the most recognized and prestigious film festivals worldwide, was founded in 1946. It consists of having films screened in and out of competition during the festival; films screened in competition compete for the Palme d'Or award. The award in 2010 was won by Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, a Thai film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. This was determined by the festival's jury members who reviewed films screened in competition. American film director Tim Burton was the president of the jury for the international competition, and other members of the jury for that competition included actors, screenwriters and composers, such as Kate Beckinsale, Emmanuel Carrère, Benicio del Toro, and Alexandre Desplat. Other categories for films screened in competition that have their own separate juries for other awards are for Short Films and the Un Certain Regard category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bahman Motamedian</span>

Bahman Motamedian is an Iranian film maker, photographer, writer and script writer. He was born in Tehran, Iran. Motamedian belongs to the so-called "new wave" of Iranian cinema. Bahman Motamedian is also has been involved in over twenty works, including shorts film, documentaries film, video art and theater.
Motamedian made his first feature film, titled "Khastegi" in 2008. "Khastegi" was shown in the official selection of 65th Venice International Film Festival as the "surprise film" in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denis Delestrac</span> French director and producer

Denis Delestrac is a French director and producer who is best known for creating feature-length investigative documentaries. His films focus on the ecological, social, and political impacts of natural resources. His film Sand Wars influenced the United Nations Environmental Program to write a report on sand scarcity in 2019.

<i>Salaam Dunk</i> 2011 American film

Salaam Dunk is a 2011 American documentary film directed by David Fine about an Iraqi university's women basketball program, spearheaded by a US-born instructor as coach.

<i>Fire in the Blood</i> (2013 film) 2013 Indian film

Fire in the Blood is a 2013 documentary film by Dylan Mohan Gray depicting what it claims is the intentional obstruction of access to low-cost antiretroviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS to people in Africa and other parts of the global south, driven by multinational pharmaceutical companies holding patent monopolies and various Western governments consistently supporting these companies. The film claims that the battle against what it refers to as a "genocidal blockade," which it estimates to have resulted in no less than ten to twelve million completely unnecessary deaths, was fought and won.

Dylan Mohan Gray is an Indian and Canadian filmmaker. His documentary feature film Fire in the Blood, premiered in competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and went on to enjoy the longest theatrical run of any non-fiction film in Indian cinema history . An official selection at over 100 leading film festivals which was honoured with major awards and accolades worldwide, Fire in the Blood altered the global conversation around access to essential medicine, and in 2018 was named one of "26 landmark documentary films of the past seven decades" in a major retrospective curated by legendary documentarian John Pilger.

<i>Sand Wars</i> 2013 film by Denis Delestrac

Sand Wars is a documentary by director Denis Delestrac and produced by Rappi Productions, La Compagnie des Taxi-Brousse, InfomAction, Arte France, with the support of The Santa Aguila Foundation.

<i>A Brony Tale</i> 2014 documentary film

A Brony Tale is a 2014 Canadian-American documentary film directed by Brent Hodge. The film explores the brony phenomenon, the adult fan base of the children's animated show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic that arose shortly after its premiere in 2010. The film is structured around the journey of Ashleigh Ball, one of the principal voice actresses for the show, including her initial reactions to learning of this older fanbase, and her travel as a Guest of Honor to one of the first fan conventions BronyCon held in New York City in 2012. Hodge, a close friend of and previous collaborator with Ball, was curious as she was as to this phenomenon and opted to film her travel and appearance at the convention for the documentary.

<i>I Thought I Told You to Shut Up!!</i> 2015 short documentary film

I Thought I Told You to Shut Up!! is a 2015 Canadian short documentary film by Charlie Tyrell about Reid Fleming, "the world's toughest milkman", a cartoon character created by David Boswell.

Bloodied but Unbowed is a 2010 Canadian documentary film detailing the rise and influence of the punk music scene in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

<i>Searching for Skylab</i> 2019 film

Searching for Skylab - America's Forgotten Triumph is a 2019 documentary about the 1970s American space station Skylab. It was written by Carl Alessi and directed by Dwight Steven-Boniecki and partly crowdfunded.

References

  1. Dodds, Katherine (2010-05-11). "PAX AMERICANA and the Weaponization of Space tonight at DOXA in Vancouver!". rabble.ca. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
  2. "And the winners are… | Whistler Film Festival Blog". Archived from the original on January 8, 2010. Retrieved May 24, 2010.