EARTH DAY FILM FESTIVAL AT Santa Monica College

[Guest guest]

10 hours of free enviro films, filmakers and other

speakers and the legendary veggie van.

 

Thanks-

Sheila Laffey, Ph.D.

Coordinator

Earth Day Film Festival at Santa Monica College

Adjunct Professor of Cinema

310-453-4272

 

 

 

EARTH DAY FILM FEST AT SMC

Ed Begley Jr. One of Special Guests

 

I am pleased to announce the first Earth Day Film

Festival at Santa Monica College on April 22 and 23

 

Featuring 10 hours of film screenings and discussions

with many of the filmmakers as well as special guest

speakers including actor/environmentalist Ed Begley

Jr. The films range from light hearted shorts to

popular feature films.

You can print out a flyer of the schedule at

http://www.smc.edu/comm/EarthDayFilmFestival

The festival – which honors the 35th anniversary of

Earth Day – is scheduled from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Friday, April 22 and 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, April

23. The event is free, but seating is limited in the

venue, Room 214 in the Art Complex, 1900 Pico Blvd.

Aside from Begley, special guests include author

Adeline Peter Raboff

who appears in “Oil on Ice,” which recently won Best

Documentary Short at the International Documentary

Awards. The film connects the fate of the Arctic

National Wildlife Refuge to critical decisions about

energy policy. The recent vote in Congress to open

this area to drilling will be addressed in discussion.

 

Other films dealing with energy include the newly

released “The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror,”

which will be followed by discussion with filmmakers

Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy, as well as the

shorts “Global Warning,” narrated by Leonardo

DiCaprio, and “On the Brink” by Drew McKeen and Ferris

Kawar, as well as the light-hearted short

documentaries, “The Veggie Van Voyage” with director

Joshua Tickell and “SUV Taggers” with Judith

Vogelsang. The legendary van will be parked on

campus.

Two SMC professors will be showing their films:

English professor Dana Morgan’s “Wordsworth Country,”

and adjunct cinema professor Sheila Laffey’s

award-winning “The Last Stand, Heroes at Ballona

Wetlands,” a new short update in the wetlands series

hosted by Ed Asner and co-directed by Todd Brunelle

that recently won a Telly Award for the PBS series,

“Natural Heroes.” Begley, who appears in “The Last

Stand,” will speak before and after Laffey’s film

which screens on Saturday at 3 PM.

Venice filmmaker Ziri Rideaux will show her

award-winning “Treewoman,” about Julia Butterfly Hill,

the young woman who lived in an ancient redwood tree

for two years. Producers Geoffrey Holland and Greg

Molina discuss “Cost of Cool,” (directed by Michael

Tobias) which addresses ways in which young people can

enjoy high quality lives while being less focused on

possessions and materialism. The festival ends with

the popular success, “The Corporation,” which looks at

the role of corporations in shaping our world.

Additional speaker is Rex Weyler whose most recent

book is Greenpeace: How a Group of Journalists,

Ecologists, and Visionaries Changed the World. (2004,

Raincoast Books, Rodale Press). He is also the

co-founder of Greenpeace International and received a

Pulitzer Prize nomination for his Native American

history, Blood of the Land,

The series is coordinated by Laffey, whose topic for

Cinema 5 is Social, Political and Environmental Issues

in Feature Films and Documentaries. She has produced

many award-winning documentaries and short dramatic

films, primarly on the environment. Morgan, who is

also working on the series, teaches a course in the

English Department which deals with writing about

nature.

The film series is sponsored by the SMC

Communications Department with the

SMC Center for Environmental and Urban Studies, SMC

English Department, SMC EcoAction Club and the SMC

Film Club, with funding assistance from the SMC

Associates, a private organization that funds speakers

and special programs at the college.

For information 453-4272

 

SMC EARTH DAY FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

 

Friday, April 22

6 p.m. – “Wordsworth Country” and “Global Warming”

6:30 p.m. – “Oil on Ice”

7:30 to 7:50 p.m. – Q & A with filmmakers Morgan and

Raboff

7:50 to 8 p.m. – Intermission

 

8 PM Remarks by Rex Weyler, author, Greenpeace

8:05 to 9:35 p.m. – “The Oil Factor: Behind the War

on Terror”

9:30 to 9:50 p.m. – Q & A with filmmakers Ungerman and

Brohy

 

Saturday, April 23

 

3 p.m. – Opening remarks by Ed Begley, Jr.

Shorts: “Power of One” & “On the Brink” with DeWitt

Mckeen & Ferris Kawar

3:05 to 3:30 p.m “The Last Stand, Heroes at Ballona

Wetlands,” followed by Q & A with Begley and filmmaker

Laffey.

3:50 p.m. – “SUV Taggers,” followed by Q & A with

director Vogelsang

4 p.m. – “The Veggie Van Voyage” with Q & A with Joshua

Tickell

4:15 to 4:45 p.m. – “Treewoman”

4:45 p.m. – Q & A with filmmaker Ziri Rideaux

5 to 6 p.m. – Dinner Break

6 p.m. “Cost of Cool” directed by Michael Tobias

6:30 p.m. – Q & A with producers Holland and Molina

7 to 9:30 p.m. – “The Corporation”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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