Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)

Director:
Werner Herzog

IMDB

Review:
Through examining Fini Straubinger, an old woman who has been deaf and blind since her teens, and her work on behalf of other deaf-blind people, this film shows how the deaf-blind struggle to understand and accept a world from which they are almost wholly isolated. Indeed a one of Herzog's most extraordinary documentaries. A must watch!

Blindsight (2006)

Director:
Lucy Walker

IMDB

Review:
Erik Weihenmayer is an athlete and climbing enthusiast who, in the spring of 2001, scaled the summit of Mount Everest. This would be a notable accomplishment for anyone, but Weihenmayer was different from those who had reached Everest's peak before him -- he's been blind since the age of thirteen. Weihenmayer's remarkable story came to the attention of Sabriye Tenberken, an educator who teaches blind teenagers in Lhasa, Tibet. In Tibetan culture, blindness is considered by many to be a curse, and it's not unknown for families to abandon children who are blind to the streets. Hoping to show others what her students could do, Tenberken invited Weihenmayer to Tibet to lead six teenagers on a climb of Lhakpa Ri, a peak on the northern face of Mount Everest. Weihenmayer eagerly accepted the invitation and in 2004 he joined Tenberken and her students on the adventure of a lifetime as six sightless novice climbers attempted to conquer one of the world's tallest and most challenging mountains. Documentary filmmaker Lucy Walker joined Weihenmayer for his adventure with the Tibetan students, and Blindsight is a record of what he and his charges accomplished together. Blindsight received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.

So Much So Fast (2006)

Director:
Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan

IMDB

Review:
The unusual response of two brothers to devastating news sets the stage for this documentary. Stephen Heywood was 29 years old and had a solid job building houses, as well as a steady girlfriend, when he received word from his doctor that he'd been diagnosed with Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis, a fast-spreading motor neuron condition also known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease." ALS robs its victims of the ability to control their muscles, and no cure has been discovered at this time. Stephen's brother Jamie responded to this news by quitting his job and starting a scientific research team to ferret out new treatments for the disease (given the small number of people who deal with ALS, few drug companies have stepped forward with medicines to ease its symptoms, believing that they could not turn a profit on the drugs). As Jamie wages a personal war against the medical establishment knowing his brother is getting worse every day, Stephen asks his girlfriend to marry him and they decide to have a baby, determined to squeeze a lifetime into the few years he has left with the unflagging support of his friends and family. So Much So Fast was screened in competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.

The Refugees of the Blue Planet (2006)

Director:
Hélène Choquette and Jean-Philippe Duval

IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1052036/

Review:
"The Refugees Of The Blue Planet" is a very sad and truly moving documentary by Quebecois filmmakers, Hélène Choquette & Jean-Philippe Duval, about the ever growing phenomenon of environmental refugees. These are people who have been displaced as a result of the ever growing number of natural disasters (which the documentary argues are a result of global warming), or as a result of the negligence of corporations and governments who makes deals to extract hazardous resources on peoples land, utilize practices which degrade the environment, or force people off their land for the creation of monoculture farms. "They are constantly growing in number and often have no legal status, even though their right to a clean and sustainable environment has been violated." (nfb.ca) In numbers they have now surpassed the number of political and war refugees in the world (25 million:23 million). Oh and did I mention that these refugees aren't limited to third world and developing countries......it could be anyone.  We are taken to three very different parts of the world where people are suffering from three very different problems, all of which have made them environmental refugees. These stories are juxtaposed with interviews made by numerous scholars, human rights and environmental activists.