- Directed by: Juliet Brown
- Produced by: Juliet Brown
Released: 2015
Running Time: 58 minutes
Language: English
Educational Package includes: International Lawyer Polly Higgins discusses Ecocide law. (8 min bonus feature)
With some of the richest fishing grounds in the United States, and beautiful beaches with clear water, many considered Grand Isle Louisiana to be a little slice of paradise. All that changed in 2010 when disaster struck this community in the form of an explosion of an offshore oil rig that killed 11 men and poured over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of 3 months. Grand Isle's beach community was right in the path of the disaster’s toxic crude and foamy chemical dispersants.
Several years after the disaster, residents continue to struggle with a collapsed fishing population, an ocean that is laced with chemicals and the health repercussions of intense chemical exposure.
Reviews / Quotes:
“One to leave you thinking.” - The Hollywood News
“Captures what Grand Isle has endured over the last half decade” - onEarth magazine
"In April 2010 an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon -- a Transocean-owned, BP-leased oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico -- killed 11 workers and subsequently led to the equivalent of an estimated 4.2 billion barrels of oil being dumped onto the Gulf. It is considered to be the worst manmade environmental disaster in U.S. history. Grand Isle, the last inhabited barrier island off the coast of Louisiana, sits 100 miles from the Deepwater Horizon site, and its inhabitants are entirely dependent on the surrounding water for their livelihood. Once Deepwater oil made its way to Grand Isle, it decimated everything it touched -- and that was just the beginning. Filmmaker Juliet Brown's powerful documentary Ecocide chronicles the short- and long-term effects of the Deepwater spill on the Grand Isle's people and environment: wildlife dying or suffering from mutations from the oil and the chemical dispersant used during cleanup; commerce disrupted due to trawlers being unable to fish sullied water; tourist dollars lost; and a population slowly succumbing to health conditions related to the spill. The film ironically balances these sad facts with BP and local, state, and federal claims that the cleanup was successful and crisis eliminated. To further drive home the message, images of water, shorelines, and wildlife destroyed by thick black oil sludge and a community slowly falling apart are juxtaposed with notably sparse scenes of vacationing beach goers after the island has supposedly received a clean bill of health. Ecocide successfully illustrates how willful ignorance continues the damage begun by the oil spill. Extras include a featurette on efforts to make ecocide an international crime. Highly recommended." - Video Librarian