If You Love This Planet

If You Love This Planet
Directed by Terre Nash
Produced by Edward Le Lorrain
Music by Karl du Plessis
Cinematography André-Luc Dupont
Susan Trow
Don Virgo
Distributed by National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
Release dates
 1982
Running time
 26 minutes
Country Canada
Language English

If You Love This Planet is a 1982 short documentary film recording a lecture given to SUNY Plattsburgh students by physician and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott about the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The movie was directed by Terre Nash and produced by Edward Le Lorrain for Studio D, the women's studio of the National Film Board of Canada. Studio D head Kathleen Shannon was executive producer.

Released during the term of the Reagan administration and at the height of Cold War nuclear tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, If You Love This Planet was officially designated as "foreign political propaganda" by the U.S. Department of Justice and suppressed in the United States.[1][2] The subsequent uproar over that action gave the film a publicity boost; it went on to win the 1982 Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject.[3] It appears that the first cinema showing of the film in Britain did not occur until April 2008, when it was screened by the London Socialist Film Co-op.[4]

Book

Helen Caldicott, M.D., later wrote a book of the same name, If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992). A new edition of this book was published by W.W. Norton in September 2009.

Radio Program

Dr. Caldicott hosted a weekly radio program called If You Love This Planet. From July 2008 to November 2012, it ran to 216 editions.[5] The program was first aired by Pacifica Radio station KPFT-FM in Houston and played weekly on dozens of U.S., Canadian and Australian stations. Episodes are archived on www.ifyoulovethisplanet.org and at radio4all.net. The series focused on the threats to human survival posed by nuclear weapons, nuclear power, global warming, pollution, deforestation, and other public health issues.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "CENSORED: Wielding the Red Pen (Online Exhibit)". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
  2. ↑ Verbinski, Jane (April 1983). "If You Love This Planet Gov't censors pick best short". Jump Cut (28): 64. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
  3. ↑ "If You Love This Planet". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-01.
  4. ↑ Matthew Hays, "Montreal Oscar Stories: Two of the city's award-winners reminisce" Montreal Mirror, March 21, 1997. Accessed 2008.12.18.
  5. ↑ http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/65308
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