RUBBERNAUT

http://vimeo.com/41118791

CHUT WUTTY - This film is dedicated to friend and activist Chut Wutty, who was shot and killed on 26th April by military police. Our thoughts go out to his wife and children. We hope that in the battle to save Prey Lang forest, Wutty's life work will be honoured.

RUBBERNAUT is the story of two families living in Prey Lang forest, Cambodia. Rubber plantations are encroaching on the forest with the force of a juggernaut. We follow Phalla, a young mother working strenuous hours in the plantations, and Ty, a grandfather who still follows a traditional forest-dependent way of life. Now the people of Prey Lang are challenging the conversion of forest to rubber – fighting for the right to determine their future.

SYNOPSIS - In the early morning children and farm animals huddle round a fire of palm fronds to keep warm. Tatey village lies at the edge of Prey Lang forest. Ty is a father of ten, who has lived and worked in the Prey Lang since he was young. His family struggles to make a living, and to protect the forest resources they depend on.

20 kilometers away in a modern company-built village of yellow-painted concrete houses, Phalla raises her children, balancing her family’s needs with the irregular and strenuous hours that she works in the rubber plantation.

An elder explains the land grabbing that went before the plantation. He speaks out for the people who have lost their land and laments the changes he has seen, “We are in an ocean of rubber – there is no forest left.”

Meanwhile to the north hundreds of villagers from the four provinces surrounding Prey Lang have walked for ten days through the forest - patrolling. Their ally and advisor, Chut Wutty, demands that their traditional rights be recognised. The Prey Lang Network joins forces at the CRCK rubber company concession: the latest enclosure, another free-for-all of illegal logging. And now it’s being challenged.