TREES OF PROTEST
Director: Nick Schader
Documentary | D | 2019
102 min | Dolby 5.1
53rd Hof International Film Festival
2019
The documentary film accompanies the climate movement in the brown coal mining region of Hambach for more than two years until spring 2019 and tells the story of the bitter struggle of environmental activists for climate justice and against the energy giant RWE. It documents how the initially regional resistance grew into a climate movement across German borders. The film focuses on environmental activists who live in tree houses in the Hambach Forest to protect it from deforestation. RWE has been clearing the formerly largest forest in North Rhine-Westphalia for lignite for years. The clearing of the tree houses in autumn 2018 led to one of the largest police operations in German history.