As posted earlier, Marion Cotillard travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the first week of June and Greenpeace realized a 7-episode documentary of her travels through the rainforests. Travelling by pirogue (a small wooden boat), she witnessed the destruction caused by logging first hand. Many of the episodes are now available with subtitles:

• Original French: Congo: Des forêts en sursis
• English Subtitles: The Congolese Rainforests: living on borrowed time
• German Subtitles: Marion Cotillard mit Greenpeace im Kongo
• Portuguese Subtitles: Congo: floresta ameaçada

Gallery: 371 The Congolese Rainforests: living on borrowed time (2010)
Video: 006 Documentaries > The Congolese Rainforests

At the beginning of June 2010 Marion Cotillard travelled together with Greenpeace to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Congo: Forests on probation is an impressive 7-part video diary of Marion’s stay there and documents the plundering of the Congolese forests. I am leaving on a short holiday so I don’t have the time to upload pictures but I encourage you to watch these videos.

I will catch up on all the ‘Inception‘ promotion and other Marion news once I’m back next week. And here’s a TV alert: She will be the guest on the Late Late Night Show with Craig Ferguson on the day of ‘Inception‘s LA premiere: July 13.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day today Vanity Fair asked environmentally conscious individuals, among them Marion, to make a wish for a greener world. Here’s the video:

This is Marion Cotillard. My wish for the 40th anniversary of Earth Day is awareness, good sense and love. Because it’s the only energy that can change things.

Before I leave for my vacation I uploaded a HQ version of Marion’s portrait for the Tck Tck Tck Time for Climate Change Campaign. We previously only had a very small version of it.

While I’m gone my dear friend Mariana will look after the site seeing as Marion is so busy right now.

Marion Cotillard together with other French actors has participated in a spot asking people to sign the petition L’ultimatum climatique. The petition mainly addresses the French president, that he should take a stand for the environment during the upcoming conference in Copenhagen in December. But it also asks the French citizens to support any measures to save our planet and to show their readiness to do so by signing the petition. More information in the Press Release as well as on the official website Copenhague-2009.

Participants in the spot: Charles Berling, Marion Cotillard, Stéphane Debac, Agathe de La Fontaine, Marc Jolivet, Mélanie Laurent, Bernard Lavilliers, Emmanuel Petit, Lea Seydoux, Daniel Bravo & Guizmo De Tryo, Christophe Willem & Zazie.

People who have already signed the petition include Jane Birkin, Guillaume Canet, François Cluzet, Clotilde Coureau, Vanessa Paradis, Sylvie Testud and many more.

Gallery: 010 Charity & Causes > L’Ultimatum Climatique (2009)
Video: 001 Other > L’Ultimatum Climatique

I’ve just added many additional HQ pictures of Marion at last week’s silent gathering to protest the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi. Enjoy!

035 Silent Gathering in support of Aung San Suu Kyi

As we previously reported Marion was supposed to provide a design for the benefit of Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque – the organisation helping children from all backgrounds getting much needed heart surgery. However, she was very sad to cancel her involvement as her contract to Dior doesn’t allow her to lend her name to another label (the project also involves fashion house Maje). In her place, Guillaume Canet will sign a piece that will be auctioned off at the end of the planned exhibition.

Source: Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque via Marion Cotillard Web

Finally, pictures from Tuesday’s silent gathering in support of Aung San Suu Kyi have been added to the gallery. There are a few HQ pictures as well as many regular sized ones. Enjoy!

Listen to a short interview (in French) with Marion from the event on RTL.fr.

I’ve been supporting this woman for 14 years now. I was really touched when I discovered her life and what she had to go through. She’s a wonder to me, her purity, she’s someone who’s not afraid. She’s accepted to not being able to see her husband, her children, for the sake of her people. That’s something extraordinary! Information we have about her, her health condition, her…, are frightening. And if these military people, who are deaf and blind, people who are beyond sense and law… if there’s a moment to help reverse this, I believe in it. I believe that bringing as many people as possible in this country up to date on who this woman is and what is going on in that country is not in vain. It’s a start to get her out of prison.

Translation by myself. Please correct me if there are mistakes!!

027 Silent Gathering in support of Aung San Suu Kyi

Thank you Stephanie! Marion Cotillard appeared on Canal+’s Le grand journal earlier tonight. Together with Jane Birkin she talked about tonight’s Silent Gathering in support of Aung San Suu Kyi and there was also a bit of talk about the ‘Beds are burning’ video clip. She stayed on for the remaining of the discussion about the school system.

You can watch it online (Partie 2 as well as the very end of Partie 3) or in our video archive (the final part from Partie 3 is missing here though). If anybody has a HQ clip I could use to get good quality screencaptures please don’t hesitate to contact me, thank you!

According to PurePeople Marion Cotillard will attend the following event:

Silent Gathering to support Peace Nobel Prize Aung San Suu Kyi
Tuesday October 6 – From 9 to 11pm on the Square of Paris’ Town Hall

On Jane Birkin’s initiative and with most of the artists who signed the petition launched last July for the trial among which Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, Charlotte Rampling… With the support of Info Birmanie, FIDH, Amnesty International, SOS Aung San Suu Kyi, Ligue des droits de l’homme, Human Rights Watch

Join us to show your support! Come with a candle…

Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial, Nobel Prize Laureat, started on May 18, 2009, at the Insein Prison in Rangoon. She was charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by letting an American citizen stay at her place for two nights. Yet, Aung San Suu Kyi was the unwilling host of an irrational individual convinced that God sent him to her house.

Her house arrest was to officially end on May 27. John Yettaw’s intrusion in Suu Kyi’s residence therefore constituted a dreamed opportunity for the generals to extend her detention. For the junta, all this is about eliminate any opposition before the elections planned for 2010. These elections are supposed to foster the establishment of a ‘prosperous and controlled’ democracy … ruled by the generals.

On August 11, Aung San Suu Kyi was thereby sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour. The sentence was quickly commuted to 18 months under house detention by Burma’s Senior General Than Shwe in an attempt to give an impression of leniency. The generals reached their goal: to prevent Aung San Suu Kyi from influencing the next year elections’ results and from taking part in the political process.

To dodge the international community, the Court of Rangoon accepted the appeal launched by her lawyers at the beginning of September. The courts will hear the appeal on September 18. However there is no hope to see the Nobel Price Laureate released. The Burmese junta did not invest so many political resources condemning Aung San Suu Kyi to finally free her a few weeks later.

Papers from all over the world have already forgotten this summer events. And the generals only hope for one thing: that we no longer talk about Aung San Suu Kyi. This is the reason why it is urgent that we speak up.
Source: JaneBirkin.net

Additional information: “As expected the court rejected her appeal against her 18 month sentence on October 2. A day later, on Saturday she was escorted into surprise talks with Aung Kyi, the ruling military junta’s relations minister. The meeting lasted 45 minutes and was the first since January 2008.”

Marion Cotillard has talked about her strong feelings for Aung San Suu Kyi and her case in a number of interviews.