Emptying the Skies: Keeping the Birds of Europe Flying
This post was written by DOC NYC blogger Katie Lewin
On Thursday night, the final night of the festival, DOC NYC screened EMPTYING THE SKIES. The film, based on an essay of the same name published in The New Yorker written by Jonathan Franzen, was directed by Douglas Kass and co-directed and produced by his brother Roger. Franzen’s original essay was an in-depth study about the trapping and killing of migratory songbirds in Europe, a practice that has been outlawed by the European Union but is still an unenforced law in the rural countryside. The birds are eaten as a delicacy, and are still sold in some restaurants.
The film follows the actions of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) and some of their most active members, three Italians named Andrea, Piero and Sergio. The Kass brothers interviewed Franzen, along with members of other anti-trapping organizations such as BirdLife Cyprus, but focuses mostly on the brave actions of the three men. Douglas Kass mentioned that they shot a lot of footage on “as small a camera as possible” with the cameramen following them into rural areas of Cyprus, Italy and France as their subjects release captured birds and destroy hundreds of traps.
Franzen himself joins them on one of their forays, and after a dangerous run-in with Cypriot farmers calls his Italian compatriots “half-crazy” for undertaking their task. The film is a very touching portrayal of the hard work that these people do in their spare time to enforce a law that is ignored in the name of tradition, and more shockingly, underground criminal activity.
In the Q&A that followed the screening, Thom Powers, asked Franzen what he thought the film added to his original essay. Franzen answered, “It allows you to get to know the Italians.” Roger Kass mentioned that the three men have unfortunately been sued in a civil action for “trespass and disruption of property and other things,” which is why they were unable to attend the screening.
An audience member asked what was being done on the demand-side to discourage people from eating these birds, and Franzen answered, “Not a great deal.” He added that while organizations like BirdLife Cyprus focus on restaurants, vilifying “lovely women feeding toddlers little birds doesn’t play so well.” When asked if the underlying problem was more political or cultural, Franzen replied definitively that it is cultural; EMPTYING THE SKIES will hopefully be a way to show people how hewing to tradition does not excuse illegal activity.
