Visions of Nature, Voices of Nature Environmental Film Festival at Eckerd College Announces 2010 Lineup

The Visions of Nature, Voices of Nature Environmental Film Festival at Eckerd College announces its lineup of films for February 19 to 27, 2010.

The Environmental Film Festival brings compelling and important films to the Tampa Bay area and the Eckerd College community in order to raise awareness and promote discussion of questions relating to nature, place, and the environment. Each year, organizers bring film scholars and filmmakers from around the world to engage the audience in lively discussions of the environmental perspectives contained in documentary, animated, experimental and feature films.

Screenings will be held in The Dan and Mary Miller Auditorium and are free and open to the public. All programs begin at 7 p.m. (except Sunday, February 21, which begins at 2 p.m.) Each program will feature an opportunity for audience questions immediately after the program.

The Environmental Film Festival is coordinated by Nathan Andersen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, and Catherine Griggs, Associate Professor of American Studies. Major Support is provided by The Phoenix Venture Philanthropy Foundation.

ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL 2010 PROGRAM

Planting Trees in Africa
Friday, February 19, 7 pm
Pumzi - Director: Wanuri Kahiu (English, 20m, 2010)
Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai - Directors: Lisa Merton and Alan Dater (English, 81m, 2008)

Two visionaries, one real and one from science fiction, risk it all to perform the revolutionary act of planting trees.

In Pumzi, Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu creates a vision of a dystopian future, in which there is no more life outside the self-contained domes. She becomes convinced that there is hope and escapes into the outer world, in an effort to bring back life. This powerful science fiction short, that recalls dystopian vision such as Road Warrior and THX-1138 but has its own distinctively African style, was selected for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai considers the life work of the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts at educating rural women about ecology and self-empowerment. Their efforts to revitalize the local landscapes worked successfully against deforestation, poverty, ignorance, embedded economic interests, and violent political oppression.

This program is offered in collaboration with the International Cinema Series and is part of The Plight and Promise of Africa: An Eckerd College Initiative.


The Vanishing American West
Saturday, February 20, 7 pm
Sweetgrass - Directors: Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (English, 101m, 2009)

An ethnographic study of a vanishing way of life, Sweetgrass follows some of the last modern-day cowboys as they herd sheep into the beautiful Absaroka-Beartooth mountains.

Presenter: Film co-director Ilisa Barbash is Associate Curator of Visual Anthropology at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. With Lucian Taylor, she is author of The Cinema of Robert Gardner .


Suncoast Nature
Sunday, February 21, 2 pm
Wild Orchid Man - Director, editor, and music: Darryl Saffer
The Phosphate Dilemma - Produced by 3PR, People for Protecting Peace River

Wild Orchid Man in the Ghost Orchid Swamp - The pilot episode of a new nature series follows local Orchid expert and renowned artist Stig Dalström, as he searches for the elusive ghost orchid in the Florida Everglades.

Presenters: Stig Dalström has degrees in civil engineering and horticulture, is a self-taught watercolor artist, botanical illustrator and experienced orchid taxonomist. He resides in Sarasota, Florida. Darryl Saffer spent two years studying biology in college before changing his major to music and earning a Master's degree in music theory. His camera has focused on such diverse subjects as orcas off the coast of Vancouver Island, public housing in Florida and cosmic theory.

The Phosphate Dilemma is essential viewing for those who care about Florida’s environment. It highlights the irreversible environmental and economic destruction that follows phosphate mining in southern Florida.

Presenter: Dennis Mader graduated from Florida Presbyterian College (now Eckerd College) in 1968. He lives in Hardee County, Florida, and serves as president of 3PR (People for Protecting Peace River), an environmental organization opposed to the expansion of phosphate strip mines in the Peace River watershed.


Under the Sea
Monday, February 22, 7 pm
A View from Below - Directed, produced and edited by Matt O'Connor and Paul DiNatale (English, 74m, 2008)

A View From Below follows Karl Stanley in his unprecedented, controversial, quest to ‘go deeper’. Karl started building his first submarine when he was still in high school, and completed it during his time as an American Studies major at Eckerd College.

Presenter: Captain Karl Stanley has designed and built two deep-diving submersibles which he has piloted in three different countries on more than 1000 dives, with missions ranging from just a few hours up to seventeen hours. At the age of 24, he began taking people on expeditions down the Cayman Trench off Roatan. Karl Stanley received a degree in American Studies from Eckerd College in 1997.


Urban and Suburban Community Gardens
Tuesday, February 23, 7pm
The Nature of Cities - Directed by Chuck Davis, MD, MFA & Tim Beatley, Ph.D. (English, 60m)
Beyond Organic - Produced by Jon de Graaf and narrated by Meryl Streep (English, 33m)
Homegrown Revolution - Produced by the Dervaes family (English, 16 m)

We often associate environmentalism with the effort to protect pristine wilderness. These three documentaries show that it can be just as much in our own backyards, in modern cities and suburbs. Eckerd College Professor of Environmental History Kent “Kip” Curtis will introduce the films and discuss possibilities for environmental change within our own city.

The Nature of Cities explores both the nature in our own backyards- Austin and San Diego and the possibilities in projects of cities of the future - Malmo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Freiburg, Amsterdam and Paris. The film features Sustainable Communities professor Timothy Beatley as he tours these places with city planners, landscape architects, ecologists and residents.

Beyond Organic tells the story of Fairview Gardens, a 12-acre urban organic farm in California, and its long battle to survive and thrive in the face of rapid suburban development.

Homegrown Revolution - In downtown Pasadena, radical change is taking root. For over twenty years, the Dervaes family have transformed their home into an urban homestead. They harvest nearly 3 tons of organic food from their 1/10 acre garden while incorporating many back-to-basics practices, as well as solar energy and biodiesel.

Presenter: Professor Kent "Kip" Curtis teaches in the Environmental Studies program at Eckerd College. He has a deep and abiding interest in place-based education, which he is currently implementing in the form of two local landscape projects, The Organic Garden at Lakewood Elementary and The Zero Carbon Brazil Pepper Removal Project.


Turning Trash into Cash in Cairo
Wednesday, February 24, 7 pm
Garbage Dreams - Produced, Directed, and Filmed by Mai Iskander (English and Arabic with English subtitles, 53m, 2009)

Eco Shorts:
In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman - Directed by Camille Manybeads Tso (Navaho, 26m)
Green Eco-Machine - Directed by Kristen Alexander (10 m)
The Commons - Directed by Laura Hanna (3m)

Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world's largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo, home to 60,000 Zeballeen or "garbage people." Far ahead of any modern "green" initiatives, the Zeballeen survive by recycling 80 percent of the garbage they collect.

Presenter: Andy Fairbanks is the Waste Reduction Program Supervisor for Pinellas County Utilities Solid Waste Operations.

This program is part of The Plight and Promise of Africa: An Eckerd College Initiative.


Global Overfishing
Thursday, February 25, 7 pm
End of the Line - Directed by Rupert Murray (English, 85m, 2009)

Scientists predict that if we continue fishing at the current rate, the planet will run out of seafood by 2048, with catastrophic consequences. This film explores the devastating effect that overfishing is having on fish stocks and the health of our oceans.

Presenters: Rupert Murray directed and edited Unknown White Male (2005), which was nominated for numerous awards. He has recently directed a feature length documentary Olly and Suzy: Two of a Mind, a film about two artists who paint dangerous predators in the wild. Dr. Joel Thompson is an Associate Professor of Marine Science at Eckerd College. He has conducted extensive research in twelve states and two foreign countries, including in marine environments in the Bahamas, and in astrobiology for NASA in California.


Man on the Moon
Friday, February 26, 7 pm
Moon - Directed by Duncan Jones (English, 97m, 2009)

This critically acclaimed independent science fiction feature is centered on Sam Rockwell’s portrayal of an astronaut at the end of a three-year stint overseeing mining operations on the moon. An unfortunate accident leads to an unexpected discovery, and raises questions about the nature of personal identity and the future of man in an age of increasing dependence on technology.

Presenter: Dr. Jim Deutsch is a program curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and an adjunct professor of American Studies at George Washington University. He has been a regular contributor to programs of the Environmental Film Festival.

This program is offered in collaboration with the International Cinema Series.


Revisiting the Western
Saturday, February 27, 7 pm
The Only Good Indian - Directed by Kevin Wilmott (English, 113m, 2008)

This revisionist Western tells the story of a young Native American, forcibly removed from his home and placed in a Christian boarding school. When the boy escapes he is captured by an assimilated Indian and bounty hunter Sam Franklin, but both are forced to go on the run when they are pursued by a cruel white sheriff, who also wants the reward money on the boy.

Presenter: Kevin Wilmott has worked as a peace and civil rights activist, fighting for the rights of the poor, creating two Catholic Worker shelters for the homeless, and forcing the integration of several long-standing segregated institutions. His feature films include CSA: Confederate States of America (for which he won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004), Bunker Hill, and The Only Good Indian.