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TAKING ROOT is the story of
the growth of a woman and the grassroots movement she founded, the Green
Belt Movement of Kenya. Together they have transformed their country
and our understanding of the integral connections of sustainable
development, ecological diversity, human rights, and democracy.
Planting trees
for fuel and food is not something that anyone imagined as
the first step toward the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet with that
simple act, Wangari Maathai started down the path that led
her to organize rural Kenyan women in a tree-planting project
that reclaimed their land from 100 years of deforestation,
restored indigenous agriculture, provided new sources of income,
and gave these previously impoverished and powerless women
a vital role in their country. They became Kenya's Green Belt
Movement: their small organization found itself working successively
against ignorance, against prejudice, against embedded economic
interests, and political oppression, until they became a national
force and in the face of violent government reaction helped
to bring down Kenya's dictatorship. The Nobel Peace Prize
in 2004 recognized Maathai for her 30-year struggle "to protect
the environment, promote democracy, defend human rights, and
ensure equality between men and women." In so doing, it also
presented to the world a model of personal courage in her
determination to follow the links from poverty to development,
climate, economics, and democracy.
TAKING ROOT
presents Kenya's future in action with the hope that Wangari
Maathai's belief in the vital link between the health of the
land, its people and its government will move beyond Kenya
throughout Africa and the world.
Production Credits:
PRODUCED and DIRECTED
by Lisa
Merton and Alan
Dater.
EDITOR Mary Lampson co-edited the academy-award winning documentary
HARLAN COUNTY, USA. She has worked with Emile de Antonio,
Ricky Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker. She produced and directed
UNTIL SHE TALKS, an award-winning short film that aired on
PBS's American Playhouse. She has produced over 25 short live
action films for Sesame Street. Most recently, she worked
with Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert on A LION IN THE HOUSE,
which screened at Sundance in 2006, won a special Jury Citation
at Full Frame and the Audience Award at Hot Docs. She edited
Anne Makepeace's new film, RAIN IN A DRY LAND.
COMPOSER/MUSICIAN Samité Mulondo, originally a native of Uganda,
fled Idi Amin's dictatorship in 1982 and ended up in a refugee
camp in Kenya. After leaving the refugee camp Samité had musical
success in Kenya both with the African Heritage Band and as
a solo act. He immigrated to the US in 1987 and thanks to
an opening in an early Lady Smith Black Mambazo tour, he began
building a reputation as a traditional African musician. In
his music he is influenced by traditional African music, jazz,
and classical. Samité is composing an original score for TAKING ROOT.
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