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The Forest for the Trees
Bernadine Mellis, USA, documentary, 53 min., 2005
Canadian Premiere
 Judi Bari, a leader of the environmental group Earth First! was an eco-folk hero, a labour activist who negotiated the end of tree-spiking, and a revolutionary who fought the law and won. In the summer of 1991, Bari was organizing Redwood Summer, a massive protest against logging in California’s old-growth forest. And then a bomb blew up in her car, leaving her with injuries so severe that doctors thought she would never walk again. The FBI and the Oakland police accused her of bombing her own car, labelling her a terrorist. She sued them to defend her name and the movement. Bari died from breast cancer five years before the trial ended but her estate won a $4 million jury verdict. Filmmaker Bernadine Mellis had incredible access to the trial because her father was a lead attorney on Bari’s team. The most riveting feature of this film is Bari herself who appears through her videotaped deposition and archival footage from her activist days. – M.S.L
Bernadine Mellis has had her works such as The Golden Pheasant, An Orphan’s Tale, and A Children’s Story screened in museums and schools, as well as on public television. Her father’s involvement as lead attorney in activist Judi Bari’s civil case inspired Mellis to make The Forest for the Trees.
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