CSA and Darwin’s Nightmare

I just finished listening to last Friday’s edition of NPR’s movie podcast. In addition to Unknown White Male (which is great), they discussed two promising films–a mockumentary and a documentary. First, the intentionally unfunny mockumentary CSA: The Confederate States of America. It imagines that the South won the Civil War:

CSA: The Confederate States of America, through the eyes of a faux documentary, takes a look at an America where the South won the Civil War. Supposedly produced by a British broadcasting company, the feature film is presented as a production being shown, controversially, for the first time on television in the States.

There are even faux commercials. It’s presented by Spike Lee, which makes me a little leery, and it’s apparently pretty low-budget, but I really like the concept–it feels very contemporary.

Next we have Darwin’s Nightmare, which, as far as I can tell, is an allegory about the interconnectedness of globalism:

Some time in the 1960’s, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, the new fish multiplied so fast, that its white fillets are today exported all around the world.

It’s less about the fish than about all the people impacted by the fish. There’s a cruel irony in the planes that deliver guns and landmines to the a starving region while removing tons of high-protein fish to the plates of European restaurants. Darwin’s Nightmare is up for an Oscar (hey, don’t forget my contest). I’ve only seen two of the five films in that category, so I can’t really speak to its chances.