You hear so much about people striving to live a greener, more sustainable life. You may at times wonder, who else is doing it, and is all that happy talk translating into real world results?
Three friends decided to find out. As they put it,
Mandy, Ryan and Brady are ‘bikepacking’ 12,000 miles to the East Coast and back to California, using solar-powered electronics and leg-powered bicycles. The result is a feature-length documentary film that will present [...]
I just finished watching the documentary The Future of Food. The film goes into the safety and ethical issues behind patenting genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and introducing them into our food supply. Check out the trailer:
If you want to watch the whole film, it’s available for free on Hulu! The facts about Monsanto and the GMO industry are pretty infuriating, but the film ends with an optimistic call to action. We can combat companies like Monsanto by voting with our pocketbooks and making our voices heard!
A new documentary film, “Food Inc.” exposes a frightening portrait of how dysfunctional and destructive our food system has become, and how dishonest corporations repeatedly compromise safety for profit. The movie illustrates how our nation is almost totally divorced from seasonal food, biodiversity and local production. We have entrusted the safety of our food system to a small handful of huge greedy corporations that are destroying us and the planet with massive monoculture factory farms and poisonous chemicals.
Next Wednesday night, March 25th, tune into HBO2’s premiere of the documentary They Killed Sister Dorothy at 8 pm if you want to begin to understand the violence and injustice that surrounds the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. If you aren’t going to be home, then set your Tivo.
I was fortunate enough to see Daniel Junge’s film last month at the City of the Angels Film Festival in Los Angeles. The documentary follows the aftermath of the murder of 73 year-old Sister Dorothy Stang, known as the Angel of the Amazon, a Catholic nun and rainforest activist shot in the back while trying to empower local communities to set up sustainable farms while fighting illegal logging and land grabs.
When I was a kid, I remember helping my pops water the garden. He told me that he’d seen on the news that water was going to be the most expensive resource on earth. Eight-year-old me could not believe it! Water? But it comes from the sky! Well, I’m not sure what newscast pops was watching 22 years ago, but that report was pretty much spot on. With huge areas of the U.S. crippled by drought water is becoming more of a commodity than a right.
That distinction is the focus of The Water Front, a documentary about the residents of Highland Park, Michigan and their struggle to keep a handle on their water rights. Check out the trailer and more on the film after the jump!
American filmmaker Ken Burns, most famous for his documentary on the American Civil War, is currently on a working vacation in Glacier National Park. He is obtaining footage of the park for his upcoming documentary that will be titled The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.
Burns says he was fascinated by the idea of telling the story of how Yellowstone and other national parks were created: “in a [...]
The seemingly innocuous question comes with all sorts of ethical baggage these days: for many Americans, recycling is not just an initial step into a greener life, but also an activity suffused with moral weight. While many will argue about the significance of individuals and families recycling items they might otherwise throw away, there’s no doubt that creative and innovative reuse of materials is critical for the health of the planet… and the people who reside on it (along with all of those other species). Tonight, the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet goes beyond the blue bin many of us place on the curb, and looks at three organizations that are taking recycling in some interesting, and effective, directions.
On Tuesday, April 22, the Sundance Channel will present as part of their The Green series “The Greening of Southie,” a documentary on the construction of Boston’s first green residential building, the Macallan, which is seeking a LEED gold rating. If the idea of watching a documentary on the construction of a condo building doesn’t sound too exciting to you, I cannot recommend this film enough to anyone who is or wants to be a part of green building. It presents the challenges and excitement of building green with equal measures of idealism and cynicism, juxtaposing the suits who see the project as ideas and paper with the laborers who actually have to put the building together. As the project grows, the two come closer to understanding the other side.
Fittingly, the film begins with a group of incredulous workers in hard hats listening to a project manager describe what a green building is. It turns out he doesn’t exactly know himself. “What does it give you?,” “what’s the point?” they ask. “I can’t answer that exactly,” he responds. But the skeptical laborers make jokes, dismissing the whole idea. After the manager explains that the condos will have “double flush” toilets, one man jokes, “I use that a lot - that system. One never seems to do the job.”
Editor’s note: We’re excited to hear that KingCorn is coming to the small screen, and that its creators have a new film coming out. Thanks to our friends at Eco-Libris for sharing this post with us; it was originally published on Saturday, April 5, 2008.
Two weeks ago Eylon Israely conducted an interview with King Corn’s Director and Producer, Aaron Woolf . Today we’ve got interesting updates on the film and its creators.
Firstly, If you haven’t seen this documentary yet, here’s your chance - King Corn airs on PBS on April 15! So mark it down in your calender.
And there’s also a new film from the creators of King Corn - The Greening of Southie. The film will have its world premiere on the Sundance Channel on Earth Day, April 22 at 9:40PM. This time, the filmmakers explore green building, and they’re focusing on the first green residential project in one of the favorite neighborhoods: South Boston, or Southie as everyone calls it. Here’s a little bit more about it:
Nope, not anotherAprilFool’sjoke: the Sundance Channel will be rolling out the second season of The Green starting tonight, hosted by Simran Sethi and Majora Carter. At 9 EST, a new episode of the award-winning series Big Ideas for a Small Planet will air. Subtitled “Power,” tonight’s show “explores the booming field of alternative energy as it introduces several individuals who are working to develop clean, renewable energy from resources like the sun, wind and even cow manure.”
Following that, Sundance will air its original documentary Garbage Warrior. I got a chance to screen this film a few weeks ago as part of a package I received from Earth Circle Cinema, and it’s well worth staying up past your bed time (if that’s an issue). Garbage Warrior tells the story of architect and Earthship creator Michael Reynolds, and his thirty-five+ year quest to create self-sufficient, sustainable buildings made from natural materials and society’s “waste”: “tires, beer cans, glass, and plastic bottles.”
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a good documentary can change your vocabulary.
Josh Tickell’s new film,Fields of Fuel, has just won the Audience Award for Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film, which opened last Monday to a standing ovation, is a sharp, compelling look at biofuels and the history of America’s dependence on foreign oil. From home-made biodiesel to OPEC corruption, it covers the myriad reasons why we should be changing our fuel to change our lives.
Tickell, the man who essentially introduced the world to biodiesel, has brought us an outstanding contribution to the discourse on biofuels: Fields of Fuel says in ninety minutes what we’ve all been trying to sum up for years. Here’s the trailer:
Do you recycle?
On Tuesday, April 22, the Sundance Channel will present as part of their 
Editor’s note: We’re excited to hear that 
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