In an age of division, director Josh Fox is hoping to bring people of all kinds together. Specifically, he wants them to share a table \u2013 to break bread for a meal, and come together in exuberant song.<\/p>\n
In his new documentary film The Welcome Table, the director of the the Emmy-winning Gasland travels around the world to talk to people at the leading edge of global warming\u2019s effects. The film is part stark warning of the climate crisis, part opportunity to enter into the experience of those living in the corners of the globe. It culminates with the sounds of these individuals together at an enormous table in New Orleans, eating and rejoicing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sound of the thousand voices singing together is something I want to bring all over the world,\u201d Fox told me of the joy unleashed when his collaborators came together to eat and sing. \u201cI didn\u2019t anticipate it, but I learned how powerful that can be. I think we underestimate how powerful collective joy can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox believes that a welcome table is the perfect antidote to a wall \u2013 for instance, the one that rightwingers are obsessed with building on the US\u2019s southern border \u2013 and he argues that with the climate crisis unfolding, we all had better become prepared to welcome new neighbors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcoming is a practice,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt\u2019s hard, it\u2019s not an easy thing to do. Encountering people from other cultures is a difficult project. The film offers that template, and I think that\u2019s the most powerful aspect of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The film offers the dire warning that one-third of all humanity will lose their homes due to climate change, taking viewers face to face with modern-day refugees who have been forced to migrate due to extreme weather and other natural disasters resulting from global warming. In fact, a 2020 article<\/a> published in the respected journal PNAS claimed the 1 in 3 figure \u2013 saying that this many people will have to move to cooler regions due to extreme heat \u2013 while in 2021 the World Bank put the figure for extreme heat migrataion at only 216 million<\/a> by 2050. Various other figures below the 1 in 3 number have been produced by other studies.<\/p>\n Regardless, even if the picture due to climate change turns out to not be quite as bad as Fox claims, that\u2019s still a lot of climate migrants, combined with refugees stirred up by increasingly virulent hatred against LGBTQ+ people, wars around the globe, and slowing progress in combating worldwide poverty. It is true that immigration isn\u2019t stopping any time soon, and we would do well to get better at welcoming those in search of a life of safety and dignity.<\/p>\n From Paradise, California, the site of horrific wildfires that claimed the lives of 85 people, to torrential rains and landslides in S\u00e3o Sebasti\u00e3o, Brazil, drought in the Turkana Basin in north-western Kenya, and more adversity in Peru, Australia and other locations, The Welcome Table takes viewers face to face with many suffering the brunt of climate change. Via a network of organizations, Fox bears witness to people whose ways of life are far different from the modern western lifestyle, giving an important look at the lived realities for so many around the globe. \u201cThe amazing thing about this movie is that all of these people welcomed me into their lives,\u201d Fox said. \u201cI was in all these places and just trying to show up with my humanity. In the end, the most important thing about this movie is that it\u2019s a group narration. There\u2019s a group ensemble voice to this film.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the movie, Fox connects the dots between the people he meets abroad and the increasingly extreme hatred against immigrants being fomented in the United States. With footage of ICE raids and mass detention centers, as well as hateful statements made by Donald Trump, Fox drives home the point that the wealthy and powerful in the US are increasingly responsible for the inability of migrants around the world to find peace and safety. \u201cClimate change is a form of economic and political oppression that is created by a billionaire class that refuses to stop,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n In Brazil, Fox starts out by meeting with L\u00e9o Farah, a firefighter turned humanitarian who co-founded the group Humus, which seeks to mitigate the impact of climate disasters throughout Brazil. While viewing the impacts of a landslide, Fox and his associates happen to meet up with a group of LGBTQ+ Brazilians making their lives in a favela.<\/p>\n Photograph: HBO Max<\/p>\n He connects with a gay man named Gabriel, who had to flee his home after coming out, and who now regularly exudes bravery in helping those affected by extreme weather and other natural disasters. From there, a chance encounter with a queer family snowballs into what the film endearingly calls its \u201cqueer dream team of disaster mutual aid workers\u201d, who navigate through the favela offering hope and support.<\/p>\n \u201cI went to cover the landslide, and I didn\u2019t anticipate that it was going to be this amazing story of looking at the climate catastrophe through the lens of the LGBTQ+ community,\u201d Fox said. \u201cIt became a story about how these people were facing a triple catastrophe of climate change, bigotry and poverty. It was important to me to show how the LGBTQ+ community will suffer in much greater ways.\u201d<\/p>\n Fox also travels to the Turkana Basin in Kenya, long considered the cradle of all humankind. \u201cThe people in Turkana are the only people in the world who are not migrants,\u201d Fox said. \u201cWe are the migrants, all of us are the migrants, we all came from somewhere else.\u201d Due to a harsh, years-long drought that has ravaged the area, many in Turkana have been forced to migrate to neighboring countries, like Uganda, where they have been mistreated.<\/p>\n In Turkana, Fox meets up with two outspoken members of the indigenous community, Arot and Lodoyo, who are attempting to remain in their homeland and survive. Standing before a group of animal figurines that she has made to represent the animals that once thrived in Turkana before the drought, Arot says: \u201cI want to show the rich leaders of countries who are responsible for this crisis the abundance we used to have.\u201d<\/p>\n Fox explained that he was inspired by the stridency of Arot and Lodoyo and particularly wanted to feature them on screen. \u201cThese are two people who are incredibly outspoken and incredibly passionate about speaking their truth,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are wanting to tell the the United Nations what is going on, and are outraged at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout The Welcome Table, Fox makes the point that freedom to travel around the globe should not be restricted to the wealthy or those who are coming from the proper nations. He quotes from documents like the UN universal declaration of human rights, which states \u201ceveryone has the right of movement and residence within the borders of each state\u201d.<\/p>\n Photograph: HBO Max<\/p>\n Yet in a dramatic demonstration of just how far the United States has departed from those ideals, not even all participants in The Welcome Table were granted the freedom to come to New Orleans and join in Fox\u2019s feast. Fox explained that none of the Kenyan participants in the documentary were permitted to enter the United States. \u201cWe tried really hard to get them to the table,\u201d Fox told me, \u201cbut none of them were given visas.\u201d In fact, according to Fox, only one person from all of Africa was allowed to enter the US \u2013 Purity Gakuo, a Kenyan climate change advocate who acts as a liaison to the indigenous community in Turkana.<\/p>\n Bringing together the film\u2019s participants was extremely important to Fox, as he sees collective joy as a crucial ingredient in overturning the hatred that tells immigrants to stay away. According to him, no place embodies that spirit at much as New Orleans. \u201cIt\u2019s a place where there\u2019s collective joy in the streets all the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fox looks to the the Big Easy to embody the kind of resistance spirit that he hopes will defeat the forces of authoritarianism, and allow the collective action in the face of global warming that is featured all throughout The Welcome Table. \u201cTo celebrate the hard things in life is such a very New Orleans thing to do,\u201d he told me, \u201cand at this moment it\u2019s something that we directly need. The opposition\u2019s whole point is to make us depressed, fragmented, defeated \u2013 we have to draw on the power and the strength that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an age of division, director Josh Fox is hoping to bring people of all kinds together. 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