Women We Admire:
Rebecca Harrell Tickell
JAN/FEB 2012: ISSUE 21
JAN/FEB 2012: ISSUE 21
WRITTEN BY: Nicole Landers
You might not have heard of her by name, but you’ve most certainly heard about her documentaries, including “The Big Fix” (an Official Selection of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival) and FUEL, the 2008 Sundance Award winning documentary about America’s addiction to oil. Rebecca Harrell Tickell is the force behind them, and as a filmmaker, musician, activist, public speaker and author, she thinks there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way we portray and perceive environmental issues. She wants to change it for herself and for the women, especially, who have been affected by these and other environmental crises. She should know.
After spending close to two years documenting the impacts and root cause of the BP oil spill for ‘The Big Fix’, she was left with permanent damage from exposure to the oil and dispersant in the atmosphere. Doctors say she can’t expose the skin on her neck and chest to the sun for the rest of her life and that, because of the high levels of toxins she was exposed to, that she should not have kids. “Women down in the Gulf who were exposed to high levels of oil and dispersant like I was, are having miscarriages and malformed babies. It has been a real wake up call for me.”
But Harrell-Tickell sees a much larger issue at play than just specific environmental disasters. “Somewhere along the way we fell asleep. ‘We,’ being the tribe of people who once knew how to survive on planet Earth,” Rebecca shares. “We forgot how to live naturally and intuitively. Mother Earth will survive, but whether or not we will is up to us.”
Rebecca’s husband, award-winning filmmaker Josh Tickell, is a fifteen-year veteran of green energy, including support for alternatives to oil, coal, nuclear and “natural” gas. In the last few years the Tickells have made three feature documentary films together: ‘FUEL,’ ‘The Big Fix’ and ‘Freedom.’
Harrell-Tickell is currently in pre-production on two new movies and also co-chairs the non-profit, I’ll Be the One, and penned the book, ‘Hot, Rich & Green,’ about redefining feminism and the role of women in the environmental movement. She firmly believes she can heal herself and, that we can turn this crisis around. But first we are going to have to take different actions. “We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. It is up to us each one of us.”
THE BIG FIX
www.thebigfixmovie.com
After spending close to two years documenting the impacts and root cause of the BP oil spill for ‘The Big Fix’, she was left with permanent damage from exposure to the oil and dispersant in the atmosphere. Doctors say she can’t expose the skin on her neck and chest to the sun for the rest of her life and that, because of the high levels of toxins she was exposed to, that she should not have kids. “Women down in the Gulf who were exposed to high levels of oil and dispersant like I was, are having miscarriages and malformed babies. It has been a real wake up call for me.”
But Harrell-Tickell sees a much larger issue at play than just specific environmental disasters. “Somewhere along the way we fell asleep. ‘We,’ being the tribe of people who once knew how to survive on planet Earth,” Rebecca shares. “We forgot how to live naturally and intuitively. Mother Earth will survive, but whether or not we will is up to us.”
Rebecca’s husband, award-winning filmmaker Josh Tickell, is a fifteen-year veteran of green energy, including support for alternatives to oil, coal, nuclear and “natural” gas. In the last few years the Tickells have made three feature documentary films together: ‘FUEL,’ ‘The Big Fix’ and ‘Freedom.’
Harrell-Tickell is currently in pre-production on two new movies and also co-chairs the non-profit, I’ll Be the One, and penned the book, ‘Hot, Rich & Green,’ about redefining feminism and the role of women in the environmental movement. She firmly believes she can heal herself and, that we can turn this crisis around. But first we are going to have to take different actions. “We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. It is up to us each one of us.”
THE BIG FIX
www.thebigfixmovie.com
