''If You Love This Planet'' is a 1982 short

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

recording a lecture given to

SUNY Plattsburgh The State University of New York College at Plattsburgh (SUNY Plattsburgh) is a public college in Plattsburgh, New York. The college was founded in 1889 and officially opened in 1890. The college is part of the State University of New York (SUN ...

students by physician and

anti-nuclear The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...

activist Dr.

Helen Caldicott Helen Mary Caldicott (born 7 August 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate. She founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear we ...

about the dangers posed by

nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...

s. The movie was directed by

Terre Nash Terre Nash (née Mary Teresa Nash) (born 1947 in Nanaimo, British Columbia) is a Canadian Academy Award, Oscar-winning film director. Her 1982 short documentary ''If You Love This Planet'' won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) ...

and produced by Edward Le Lorrain for Studio D, the women's studio of the National Film Board of Canada. Studio D head

Kathleen Shannon Kathleen Shannon (November 11, 1935 – January 9, 1998) was a Canadian film director and producer. She is best known as the founder and first executive producer of Studio D of the National Film Board of Canada, the first government-funded fi ...

was executive producer. Released during the term of the

Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over D ...

and at the height of

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

nuclear tensions between the United States and

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, ''If You Love This Planet'' was officially designated as "foreign political propaganda" by the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

and temporarily banned. The subsequent uproar over that action gave the film a publicity boost, and it later won the

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street bridges, 14th Street Bridge in ...

Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) This is a list of films by year that have received an Academy Award together with the other nominations for best documentary short film. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are annou ...

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...

initially refused to air the film, claiming it was biased. It debuted in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

when it was screened by the London Socialist Film Co-op.

Plot

gives a lecture on the dangers of nuclear war with inserted clips of twenty-two nuclear explosions and newsreels of survivors of the

bombing of Hiroshima The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the on ...

Production

The film was created by Studio D, a unit at the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

, with a budget of $70,117 (). The NFB's Board of Governors stated that the film was the "hottest film since '' Not a Love Story''. The Ministry of External Affairs opposed including

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

in the film.

Release

The film was meant to be shown at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

Conference on Disarmament The Conference on Disarmament (CD) is a multilateral disarmament forum established by the international community to negotiate arms control and disarmament agreements based at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The Conference meets annually i ...

. The

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

declined to broadcast the film and replied months later that they refused "because it takes a strong position on nuclear arms and does not give a balanced and objective view of the subject." and that they could not counter the film as it would be difficult to assemble a discussion panel including supporters of nuclear war. The film was later shown on '' The Journal'' and the CBC received sixty, mostly positive, letters. On 13 January 1983, the American distributors of ''If You Love This Planet'', ''Acid Rain: Requiem or Recovery'', and ''Acid from Heaven'' were ordered to register as foreign agents by the

citing the

Foreign Agents Registration Act The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)2 U.S.C. § 611 ''et seq.'' is a United States law that imposes public disclosure obligations on persons representing foreign interests.

. The films were also ordered to be labeled as political propaganda. Barry Keene, a member of the

California State Senate The California State Senate is the upper house of the California State Legislature, the lower house being the California State Assembly. The State Senate convenes, along with the State Assembly, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, Cal ...

, filed a lawsuit against the order. In 1983 and 1986, injunctions against the DOJ was issued by U.S. District Judge Raul Anthony Ramirez, but the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruled five to three in favor of the DOJ on 28 April 1987, in ''Meese v. Keene''.

Reception

The film won the

Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film This is a list of films by year that have received an Academy Award together with the other nominations for best documentary short film. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are annou ...

at the

55th Academy Awards The 55th Academy Awards were presented April 11, 1983, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, Richard Pryor, and Walter Matthau. Louis Gossett Jr. became the first Africa ...

. The film received positive reviews from the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', ''

East Bay Express The ''East Bay Express'' is an Oakland-based weekly newspaper serving the Berkeley, Oakland and East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is distributed throughout Alameda County and parts of Contra Costa County every Wednesday. The ''E ...

'', and ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...

''. The film also received praise from activist and filmmaker

Naomi Klein Naomi A. Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, left-wing politics and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism ...

Legacy

Caldicott later wrote a book, ''If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth'', and hosted a weekly radio program called ''If You Love This Planet'' from July 2008 to November 2012.

References

Works cited

External links

*
Watch ''If You Love this Planet'' at NFB.ca
*
If You Love This Planet Radio ProgramFull film at Documentary.net
{{AcademyAwardBestDocumentaryShort 1981–2000 1982 films 1982 in the environment English-language Canadian films National Film Board of Canada documentaries Best Documentary Short Subject Academy Award winners Documentary films about nuclear war and weapons Canadian short documentary films 1982 documentary films Anti–nuclear weapons movement Anti-nuclear films Films about activists National Film Board of Canada short films Quebec films 1980s English-language films Film censorship in the United States Films about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1980s Canadian films 1980s short documentary films