The Passing of Pip Starr - Australian Activist Documentary Filmmaker

Related: Pip Starr Pictures | Blogs: What a Starr, Sad, angry and confused, Pip Starr - an obituary, Obituary Pip Starr: Melbourne Activist, Geekgirl Pip Starr:RIP, Barista These things happened

He was involved in the EngageMedia collective, a video activism site for Australia and the Pacific, as well as Ska TV, Bent TV, documenting the Melbourne S11 protests against the World Economic Forum meeting for Ska TV, SpaceStation Video Lab, Woomera and beyond.

Pip produced an enormous amount of work during his time. He documented anti-nuclear, climate change, globalisation, indigenous and many more movements. Chances are if you see some iconic footage of the 1998 Jabiluka blockade, the Melbourne S11 protests against the WEF in 2000, or Woomera detention centre protest in 2002, Pip shot it. He was always in the thick of it.

Aboriginal activist Gary Foley introduced him to the Jabiluka campaign against a new uranium mine in 1998 which resulted in Fight for Country. "Gary made me understand the importance of film making as a documentation of history." Pip described on his website. The film took 4 years to complete of which a year was spent living and documenting the Jabiluka blockade established by the Mirrar people.

For many years he worked closely with Friends of the Earth Australia, especially on climate change, anti-nuclear and indigenous issues.

In recent years Pip's film making grew further and he embarked on several large projects that took him around the world, from the coffee plantations of Honduras to Carteret Islands, being flooded by rising sea levels due to global warming. Unfortunately much of this work is uncompleted. At the time of his death he was seeking finance to complete the film The First Wave documenting the relocation of the Carteret Islanders due to human induced rising sea levels.

Indeed, Pip Starr brought the plight of the Carteret Islanders to world attention with his videos, photos and activist reporting, such as in this September 2006 post to Melbourne Indymedia on Carterets to be Evacuated.

Pip worked for many years as a part time nurse in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne that dealt with major road traumas, where he witnessed time and time again the violence that is the motor car. So one of his first documentaries was a film of a Reclaim the Streets action in Sydney.

Pip's philosophy as a documentary film-maker, as described on his website:

I’ve been making documentary films in and about various activist communities for over 10 years. Most doco’s are about human and environmental issues of local, national and international significance. I believe documentary should be beautiful and entertaining as well as emotionally and intellectually stimulating. I have always been inspired by the work of activists and others who have a long term vision for the world that is about peace and real sustainability.

A week before his death Pip had made an apointment to visit Port Arthur with John Hunter and other climate scientists to add further film footage on sea level rise. He never turned up. John Hunter said that it was "sad that his work of broadcasting the importance of climate change is now over."

Barista reports that his last message, left to his friends on an answering machine, went something like this: “Dear friends, I am sorry for what I am doing. But I am completely sure I have made the right decision. The planet is beautiful. Love it.”

For reasons many of us are still trying to understand Pip chose to take his own life, a life that still had so much possibility. His contribution was enormous and his departure will leave a great hole in the world of radical documentary film.

Some of his completed documentaries include:

• RTS-7 - on a Reclaim the Streets event in Sydney in 1999 "No time was more fun than the 7th Reclaim the streets in Sydney.... It remains my favorite doco still. I think I’ve made better quality doco’s since, but none have been so much fun."
• Through the Wire - documented the Easter 2002 protests at the Woomera Refugee Detention Camp, where activists assisted asylum seekers to escape the concentartion camp.
• Fight for Country - documented the fight to stop the Jabiluka uranim mine on Mirrar land during 1998.
• The Okapa Connection - a documentary on coffee and its jouney from grower to consumer.
• Atomic Footprints - a documentary providing some of the reasons why Australia must continue to oppose nuclear proliferation.

You can find some of Pip's films on his website - http://starr.tv

On EngageMedia - http://www.engagemedia.org/author/pipstarr

And on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/starrpip

Interview with Pip (2001) - http://www.milkbar.com.au/local/archive_12.html

Blog Obituaries:

• Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert - What a Starr
• Richard Watts - Sad, angry and confused
• Chi Too - Pip Starr - an obituary
• Craig Bellamy - Obituary Pip Starr: Melbourne Activist
• Barista These things happened

Sources:

• Adapted from Pip's website, blog entries above, and EngageMedia. (2008, January 30). The Passing of Pip Starr. Retrieved January 30, 2008, from EngageMedia Web site: http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/EngageMedia/news/pip-starr.