Environmental Film Festival
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8
7:00 pm at Indian Creek Nature Center
6665 Otis Road SE
The River, Africa: A Moment in Time, The Prairie, Silent Kingdom, Wild No More and others (short film series)
Host: Indian Creek Nature Center
There is a war going on against nature and wildlife. Behind closed doors deals are made, laws are passed and nature often comes out on the losing end against greed and power. Iowa filmmaker Kevin J. Railsback presents a series of short flms from the great plains of Africa to our own Iowa prairies - showcasing the beauty of nature with the hope that people will raise a voice to save what is left before it is too late. Railsback will discuss his filming techniques and answer questions after the series of short films.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9
7:00 p.m. at Peoples Church Unitarian Universalist
600 Third Ave SE
A Thousand Suns
Host: UN Association: Linn County Chapter
A thousand Suns focuses on the indigenous people of the Gamo Highlands of the African Rift Valley and their relationship to the ecosystem. This area is one of the most densely populated rural regions of Africa. Yet, its people have been farming sustainably for 10,000 years.
Filmed in Ethiopia, New York and Kenya, the film examines the pressures created by the modern world's untenable sense of separation from and superiority over both nature and the beliefs of the indigenous Gamo people. The film also explores the significant role that spiritual and physical dimensions of interconnectedness play in the worldview of the Gamo people as they achieve sustainability.
Reverend Tom Capo, Unitarian Universalist minister at Peoples Church, will facilitate a discussion following this through-provoking film.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13
Coe College Kesler Auditorium
Hickock Hall
1220 First Avenue NE
Spirit of the Trees - 10:30 AM
Host: Trees Forever
Spirit of the Trees weaves together native voices, art and music from 40 indigenous tribes and nations. Narrated by the late actor/musician Floyd Red Crow Westerman, this remarkable journey with Native People gives you insight into the traditions of their spiritual practices, foods and medicines, art and music, shelter and land management - all inseparably connected to trees, forests and Mother Earth. This film won the prestigious Telly, Videographer, & Omni Intermedia Awards.
In the Light of Reverence - 1:30 PM
Host: Wickiup Hill Outdoor Learning Center/Linn County Conservation
A stunning portrait of land-use conflicts over Native American sacred sites on public and private land around the West. Across the USA, Native Americans are struggling to protect their sacred places. Religious freedom, so valued in America, is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religion. Every year, more sacred sites - the land-based equivalent of the world's great cathedrals - are being destroyed. Strip mining and development cause much of the destruction. But rock climbers, tourists, and New Age religious practitioners are part of the problem, too. The biggest problem is ignorance. In the Light of Reverence tells the story of three indigenous communities and the land they struggle to protect: the Lakota of the Great Plains, the Hopi of the Four Corners area, and the Wintu of northern California.
Garbage Dreams - 3:00 PM
Host: Cedar Wapsie Sierra Club
Garbage Dreams, directed by Mai Iskander, follows three teenage boys who were born into the "trash trade" in the world's largest "garbage village" on the outskirts of Cairo. It is home to 60,000 Zaballeen, which is arabic for Garbage People. Far ahead of any modern "green" movement, these people survive by recycling 80% of the garbage they collect. Now, face to face with the globalization of their trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact their futures and the survival of their community.
The Long March - 4:30 PM
Host: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art presents The Long March, a film about a community in Chengdu, China that has organized to clean up a polluted river. This film coincides with the CRMA's current documentary photography exhibition, China: Insights (October 9 through December 31).
King Corn - 5:30 PM
Host: Prairiewoods Fanciscan Spirituality Center
Come to an encore performance of the Peabody winning feature documentary about two city boys, one acre of Iowa corn, and its many impacts on our fast-food culture. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, liquid fertilizer and powerful herbicides, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain. When they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about impacts on our health and on Iowa communities.
Share a bag of popcorn and discuss the issues with filmmaker Ian Cheney following the film - 6:30 PM
Big River - 7:00 PM
Host: Coe College
The King Corn boys are back, this time headed downstream via the Cedar and Iowa Rivers to the mouth of the Big River itself, to see the environmental impacts their acre of corn has had on people and places downstream. On their trip, flashbacks to the pesticides they sprayed, the fertilizers they injected, and the soil they plowed lead to new questions about the big impacts on the carbon cycle and the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems. Back at their acre, the herbicides they used are blamed for a cancer cluster that reaches all too close to home.
Join us following the film to hear about research in the Cedar River basin performed at Coe College as film-maker Ian Cheney and Coe professor Marty St. Clair anchor a panel discussion about water quality in Iowa and its impacts downstream.