Saviors of the Forest

The protection of the tropical rain forest is one of the contemporary pillars of politically correct behaviour. In Saviors of the Forest, filmmakers Bill Day and Terry Schwartz visit Ecuador with the purpose of making 'the' film that will save the rain forest. The two men take on a buoyantly naive attitude which results in an amusing documentary about the western lack of understanding, ecologists going off the rails, and level-headed Ecuadorians. Their search for the 'bad guys' fails to produce any result, according to the filmmakers because reality is more complicated than that and defies a simple dichotomy. Saviors of the Forest especially focusses on the paradoxes and the hypocrisy involved in the campaign to save the tropical rain forest. For example, the film ascertains that Hollywood is a large-scale consumer of tropical hardwood. Even the sets and pieces of scenery of 'save-the-rain-forest' films are made with tropical woods. Therefore the film concludes that the solution of the problem lies in the reduction of the importation of hardwood. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)