Henkel's 'best ever' film to screen at World Bank | Northern Rivers News | Local News in Northern Rivers

Clunes film-maker Cathy Henkel has an encounter with an orang-utan in Kalimanten, Borneo.

Cathy Henkel's latest film 'The Burning Season' is set to ignite international audiences with a screening at the World Bank in Washington.

Attending the screening will be climate change campaigner Al Gore.

A film-maker for 20 years, Cathy, from Clunes, left for the United States last weekend. She is hoping that Mr Gore will give his support and endorsement to the film.

"If Mr Gore likes the film it will certainly help the marketing of it," Cathy said.

"This is a film that deserves global attention. It's my best to date and I am really excited to be showing it to someone like Al Gore."

Filmed across four continents, 'The Burning Season' took 18 months to complete and follows the story of three people from different worlds whose lives intersect in the lead-up to another burning season in South-East Asia. Young Australian entrepreneur Dorjee Sun goes on a mission to stop one of the great environmental catastrophes of our time. His plan involves selling the carbon credits represented by large forest areas to big polluters in the West.

At the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali last December, Dorjee relentlessly pursued his deal.

"Every hour, rainforest areas equivalent to 300 football fields are cut down and burnt to clear land for crops such as palm oil," Cathy said.

"This deforestation not only threatens the orangutan with extinction, but it also contributes to 20 per cent of global carbon emissions.

"This film is going to be controversial and I have already found that audiences are forming very different opinions of Dorjee and his carbon trading solution.

"Some say that saving forests is so important and urgent that they don't care what method is used, while others argue the merits of carbon trading or say that it won't work."

Cathy said her objective in telling the story was to give audiences the opportunity to observe a young man as he goes on a quest to find a solution to the forest crisis, to see the huge obstacles and opposition he confronts and then watch him pull off a big deal.

She said that Dorjee was rejected 200 times before he made the deal.

"I am really proud of this film. It's definitely the best I've ever made," Cathy said. "It's a very uplifting and inspiring story and one that generates hope."

The Australian premiere of 'The Burning Season' will be screened on ABC1 on October 14 at 8.30pm.

Locally people can catch the film at the Byron Bay Community Centre on Sunday (September 21) at 5pm as part of Peace Day celebrations in the Byron Shire.