This page was last updated March 5, 2010
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Publications > Reports > Documentary Films
Cracking the Golden Egg: Tourism on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast (32 minutes)
This film, commissioned by CREST and created by award-winning filmmakers Charlene Music and Peter Jordan, is part of CREST's public education campaign around coastal tourism. The film builds upon CREST's two year, multi-dimenional field study of the rapid rise and recent plateau of all inclusive resort and vacation home developments along Costa Rica's Pacific coast.
Click here to order the film.
Click here to read the important Foreward to the Documentary.
As filmmakers Charlene and Peter write, "We spent three weeks traveling down Costa Rica's Pacific Coast speaking with hoteliers, researchers, public officials, and villagers. We discovered a country at a crossroads weighing the benefits of small scale ecotourism that established the country's reputation versus high volume resort tourism that has inspired a recent boom in foreign investment. Will large all-inclusive resorts lead to a higher quality of life for local people? Does the natural environment have the capacity to sustain this new kind of development? Future generations are at stake in the search for innovative solutions to these questions."
Also available as a six-minute campanion piece to "Cracking the Golden Egg" is the short film "Cruise Ships on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast." Through interviews with passengers, tour operators, vendors, and a leading tourism analyst, this short companion piece highlights some critical issues posed by cruise ship arrivals at Puntarenas, the main Pacific Coast port.
About the Filmmakers:
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Charlene Music, born and raised in Costa Rica, studied photography at Harvard and received her MFA in documentary filmmaking from Stanford. her work has taken her to India, Africa, China, Cuba and the United States, where she has received numerous awards, including from the National Academy of Television and from Kodak. Charlene collaborates with international and humanitarian organizations to affect social change and empower communities through film and photography. |
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Peter Jordan has produced films for international and grassroots organizations in 15 countries. His work has appeared on PBS and in the New York Times and he has received numerous awards. His projects with children from Darfur, Sudan were awarded a Gold Medal from teh United Nations, while his latest film, "The First Kid to Learn English from Mexico" won four international awards. He also teaches children how to make their own films, using plastic video cameras and a solar powered computer. Peter is a graduate of the MFA program in documentary filmmaking at Stanford. |
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Copies of the films are available on DVD in English and Spanish for $25 including shipping. To order, e-mail Whitney Cooper at wcooper@responsibletravel.org or click here.
2008 Travelers' Philanthropy Film
Ahead of the 2008 Travelers' Philanthropy Conference in Tanzania, CREST (then CESD) designed and commissioned a documentary film on Travelers' Philanthropy. The film was shot and produced by two talented young filmmakers, Charlene Music and Peter Jordan. Using case studies from Costa Rica to Tanzania, the film highlighted several companies active in travel philanthropy, offering an exclusive under-the-hood view of the process behind successful philanthropy programs in health, education, and sustainable community development. Interviews were completed with travel industry experts, as well as with community members from areas being served by travel philanthropy programs. The film offers a balanced view of the immense potential of travel philanthropy, as well as the challenges and possible pitfalls that make it so important to begin projects with care and attention to detail.click above to watch a clip from the documentary. The full documentary is for sale and available via paypal or from our offices. Cost is $15 with shipping inlcluded. Buy the first ever documentary on Travelers' Philanthropy today!
If you have any purchasing questions, please contact Whitney Cooper: wcooper@responsibletravel.org