The Final Years of Majuro
A Wendover Productions Documentary
About the Video
KAREN EARNSHAW
December 10, 2019. Incoming email from Wendover Productions: “We’re a small US-based digital media production company that’s been contracted by a streaming site called Nebula to produce a series of 45-minute documentaries relating to isolated places. The first of these was released last week, about St Helena, and we’re now beginning pre-production work for our second. For this, we’ve settled on the Marshall Islands as our location to tell the story of the impacts of sea level rise and climate change…”
In December, 2019, the Marshall Islands was feeling the fear of a measles outbreak that was spreading around parts of the Pacific. The team of three documentary makers was cut down to two as the lead guy, Sam Denby, had traveled recently to Hong Kong. Undeterred, journalist Adam Chase and cameraman JT Chapman arrived in Majuro in early February, set up house at RRE Hotel and began creating one of the last documentaries to be made about the Marshall Islands before the Coronavirus pandemic led to the nation’s lockdown.
Former President Christopher Loeak, climate change activist Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, seawall builder Riem Simon, the College of the Marshall Islands’ Carl Hacker, Rongelap’s Nerje Joseph, Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal, Waan Aelon in Majel’s Alson Kelen … these folk and many others were interviewed over the following days. Adam brought with him a high level of prior research and a sensitive insight into the subject matter that also touched on climate change, the RMI’s nuclear legacy and health.
From Majuro, the team flew to Springdale Arkansas and interviewed a number of Marshallese, including Melisa Laelan of the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese.
The video was first shown on the streaming site Nebula and then in early August, 2020, was released to the public on the Wendover Productions’ YouTube channel.
Reviews
This is really impactful because it gives the people of an unknown nation a voice, and shows how devastating it is for someone to lose their home. Climate Change is going to be a huge struggle going into the future, and the fact that so few people ever really care about it shows how selfish we have truly become, replace Majuro with Hawaii or another place close to home, and I think the U.S. would probably be doing something about it.
I’m from Maldives and it’s just heartbreaking to even think of ever leaving these beautiful islands we call home. The hard truth we all have to accept is that in the not so distant future we will have the same fate as the people of the Marshall islands at the rate of the current climate change, and it’s probably already inevitable.😢 Great documentary Wendover.
This video was incredible. Thank you for sharing. I was born on Kwaj but moved at a young age because my father took another job. I went back by myself in my 30s to see where I was born. It is such an incredible place with so many dichotomies. The nuclear testing is glossed over in so many ways, but this film really brings it home. Candice
Wow… I have to say that this documentary really moved me… I was especially impacted by the seawall builder in the white polo shirt. I don’t think enough people realize these real world consequences of global warming, as they’re depicted here.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I was a producer on the documentary.
