The Clean Bin Project

Sunday, Mar 3, 3P/

The Brown Cow, Forest Park

 -

Tickets

76 Min/FAMILY

Is it possible to live completely waste free? In this multi-award winning, festival favourite, partners Jen and Grant go head to head in a competition to see who can swear off consumerism and produce the least garbage.  Their light-hearted competition is set against a darker examination of the problem waste.

 Even as Grant and Jen start to garner interest in their project, they struggle to find meaning in their minuscule influence on the large-scale environmental impacts of our “throw-away society”. Described as An Inconvenient Truth meets Super Size Me, The Clean Bin Project features laugh out loud moments, stop motion animations, and unforgettable imagery. Captivating interviews with renowned artist, Chris Jordan and TED Lecturer Captain Charles Moore, make this film a fun and inspiring call to individual action that speaks to crowds of all ages.

Black Gold

Saturday, Mar 2, 7P/First United Church, Oak Park - Tickets 

Thursday, Feb 21, 7P/Whole Foods, River Forest preview night (clip)- RSVP call 708.366.1045;

Marc Francis; Nick Francis/2006/78 min

Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.  But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields. Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. 

Black Gold follows the story of Tadesse Meskela, one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.

Against the backdrop of Tadesse’s journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world’s coffee trade becomes apparent.  New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers.

AWARDS: Winner: Best Achievement in Production, British Independent Film Awards. Winner: Best Documentary, San Francisco Black Film Festival.  Nominee: Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival.

Programming note: will be screened with Fair Trade Africa and For the Price of a Cup of Coffee.

Call of Life

Sunday, Mar 3, 6P/Unity Temple - Tickets 

60 min/Mature

All over the world species are becoming extinct at an astonishing rate, from 1000 to 10,000 times faster than normal. The loss of biodiversity has become so severe that scientists are calling it a mass extinction event. Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction is the first feature documentary to investigate the growing threat to Earth’s life support systems from this unprecedented loss of biodiversity.

Through interviews with leading scientists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and indigenous and religious leaders, the film explores the causes, the scope, and the potential effects of the mass extinction, but also looks beyond the immediate causes of the crisis to consider how our cultural and economic systems, along with deep-seated psychological and behavioral patterns, have allowed this situation to develop, continue to reinforce it, and even determine our response to it.

Call of Life tells the story of a crisis not only in nature, but also in human nature, a crisis more threatening than anything human beings have ever faced before.

Surviving Progress

Sunday, Mar 3, 12:30P/Ascension Church School (601 Van Buren), Oak Park - Tickets

Martin Scorsese; Mathieu Roy; Harold Crooks/2011/86 min/Mature

“Every time history repeats itself the price goes up.”  Surviving Progress presents the story of human advancement as awe-inspiring and double-edged. It reveals the grave risk of running the 21st century’s software — our know-how — on the ancient hardware of our primate brain which hasn’t been upgraded in 50,000 years. With rich imagery and immersive soundtrack, filmmakers Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks launch us on journey to contemplate our evolution from cave-dwellers to space explorers.  Executive Producer, Martin Scorsese.

Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired this film, reveals how civilizations are repeatedly destroyed by “progress traps” — alluring technologies serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. With intersecting stories from a Chinese car-driving club, a Wall Street insider who exposes an out-of-control, environmentally rapacious financial elite, and eco-cops defending a scorched Amazon, the film lays stark evidence before us. In the past, we could use up a region’s resources and move on. But if today’s global civilization collapses from over-consumption, that’s it. We have no back-up planet.

Surviving Progress brings us thinkers who have probed our primate past, our brains, and our societies. Some amplify Wright’s urgent warning, while others have faith that the very progress which has put us in jeopardy is also the key to our salvation. Cosmologist Stephen Hawking looks to homes on other planets. Biologist Craig Venter, whose team decoded the human genome, designs synthetic organisms he hopes will create artificial food and fuel for all.

Distinguished Professor of Environment Vaclav Smil counters that five billion “have-nots” aspire to our affluent lifestyle and, without limits on the energy and resource-consumption of the “haves”, we face certain catastrophe. Others — including primatologist Jane Goodall, author Margaret Atwood, and activists from the Congo, Canada, and USA — place their hope in our ingenuity and moral evolution.

Surviving Progress leaves us with a challenge: To prove that making apes smarter was not an evolutionary dead-end.

Programming note:  will be screened with The Good Life.

Ingredients: The Local Food Movement Takes Root

Sunday, Mar 3, 12P/

Euclid Avenue United Methodist Church,

Oak Park  -

Tickets

Robert Bates/2009/67 min/Family (Free Child Care Provided)

American food is in a state of crisis, but a movement to put good food back on the table is emerging.  What began 30 years ago with chefs demanding better flavor, has inspired consumers to seek relationships with nearby farmers. This is local food.

At the focal point of this movement, and of this film, are the farmers and chefs who are creating a truly sustainable food system. Their collaborative work has resulted in great tasting food and an explosion of consumer awareness about the benefits of eating local. Attention being paid to the local food movement comes at a time when the failings of our current industrialized food system are becoming all too clear. For the first time in history, our children’s generation is expected to have a shorter lifespan than our own. The quality, taste and nutritional value of the food we eat has dropped sharply over the last fifty years. Shipped from ever-greater distances, we have literally lost sight of where our food comes from and in the process we've lost a vital connection to our local community and to our health.

A feature-length documentary, Ingredients illustrates how people around the country are working to revitalize that connection. Narrated by Bebe Neuwirth, the film takes us across the U.S. from the diversified farms of the Hudson River and Willamette Valleys to the urban food deserts of Harlem and to the kitchens of celebrated chefs Alice Waters, Peter Hoffman and Greg Higgins. Ingredients is a journey that reveals the people behind the movement to bring good food back to the table and health back to our communities.

Programming note:  will be shown with a clip from Food Patriots.

Film and programming sponsored by The Sugar Beet Cooperative.  A free soup and bread luncheon will be provided as well as free childcare that includes lunch and a film for children - reserve child care: junemoon15@gmail.com.

SB13_OneEarthFF2013_WEB

Surviving Progress slide

Ingredients slide

Chasing Ice slide

SAVE THE DATE for One Earth Film Festival 2014:  March 7,8,9

Chasing Ice

Saturday, Mar 2, 10:30A/Lake Theatre, Oak Park - Tickets; 

Monday, Feb 11, 7P/Dominican University, Priory Auditorium, River Forest - FREE (limited seating-arrive early)

Jeff Orlowski/2012/74 min/Rated:  PG-13

In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth’s changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change. But that first trip north opened his eyes to the biggest story in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.

Chasing Ice is the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers.

As the debate polarizes America and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Balog finds himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he comes face to face with his own mortality. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his labor. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.

AWARDS:  Chasing Ice has won 23 awards at film festivals around the world, including: SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL – Excellence in Cinematography Award: US Documentary; The Environmental Media Association’s 22nd Annual BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD

Young Filmmakers Contest Guidelines

One-Earth-Our-Earth-Contest-Logo2013

Presented by One Earth Film Festival and Green Community ConnectionsThe 2nd annual One Earth Film Festival -- taking place Fri-Sun March 1-3, 2013 – is proud to announce the “One Earth . . . Our Earth!” Young Filmmakers Contest for students from upper elementary school through college.

Students are invited to submit environmental film entries that meet the following guidelines and criteria (see Contest Details below). The contest runs from Thursday, November 1, 2012 through Friday, January 25, 2013. Winners will be announced by mid-February, and winning films will be screened at the One Earth Film Festival 2013 in early March. Winners in each grade level category will also receive cash prizes and matching grants for a non-profit organization or community sustainability project of their choice.

All students in an eligible age category are invited to enter! Some suggestions for generating good film ideas:

• Pick a topic (water, waste, food, transportation, energy) that you are passionate about.

• Use your own imagination to create a story about your chosen topic.

• Consider ways in which the contest title, “One Earth . . . Our Earth!” inspires you to tell an important environmental story through film.

• Think about something you’ve done – or would like to do -- at your school or in your community (for example -- build a school garden, host a harvest dinner, tell about students composting, start a bike to school program).

• Use real people as actors in a story, or in filming documentary-style interviews.

• Create an animated film using legos or toys; film your own illustrations; create “moving” photo collages or slideshows.

• Demonstrate a “how to” video about an environmental issue.

• Be creative about how you recommend a solution to an environmental issue.

• Come up with your own creative, clever, unique ideas! . . .

CONTEST DETAILS

Download a printable version of the full contest details

Download the Entrant Oath and Permission Form

Download the One Earth Our Earth Contest Single Page Flyer

GOALS:

• To engage and educate children and adults in Oak Park, River Forest, and surrounding communities about sustainability issues in the areas of water, waste, food, transportation, and energy.

• To help viewers understand the urgency of sustainability issues in the above-mentioned topics, and share potential solutions.

ELIGIBILITY:  To enter, contestants must be in one of the following eligible grade level categories at the time of the submission.

GRADE LEVEL CATEGORIES: There will be one winner per each of the following four grade level categories.

• Upper Elementary (grades 3, 4, 5)

• Middle School (grades 6, 7, 8)

• High School (grades 9, 10, 11, 12)

• College (active, enrolled college or university student)

Contest officials reserve the right not to name a winner in any given category, pending volume and quality of entries.

TOPIC CATEGORIES:

Each film submission should choose one (or a couple) of the following areas on which to clearly focus its theme

• Water

• Waste

• Food

• Transportation

• Energy

Filmmakers will be judged on their ability to address their chosen topic/s by being engaging, informative, inspiring, and creative in the execution of their film. Submissions must show a strong (research-supported) understanding of the topic/s and related, key issues. Submissions must share/highlight solutions to issues within the entrants’ chosen sustainability topic/s.

PRIZES: Winners (one in each grade level category) will receive the following --

• Screening of their film at the One Earth Film Festival, and possibly at (a) related, subsequent event(s).

• Posting of their film (for an unspecified amount of time) at the One Earth Film Festival and Green Community Connections website, as well as potentially the websites of the Villages of Oak Park and River Forest, and possibly websites of other befitting (environmental, youth film) organizations. Required entry forms will grant the associated organizations the right to post/share your film submission in the above-described manner.  Winning films will only be shared with other organizations after the completion of the 2013 One Earth Film Festival.

• Cash prize and matching grant in the following appropriate grade level category. Matching grants will be donated to a non-profit organization or community sustainability project that the winner chooses (pending contest officials’ approval). The selected organization will have proven its ability to raise sustainability awareness, and will have demonstrated a commitment to creating solutions in the subject matter area (water, waste, food, transportation, energy) of the winning film maker’s film.

  • Upper Elementary (grades 3, 4, 5): $75 cash prize + $75 matching grant to non-profit organization/sustainability project of choice.

  • Middle School (grades 6, 7, 8): $75 cash prize + $75 matching grant to non-profit organization/sustainability project of choice.

  • High School (grades 9, 10, 11, 12): $125 cash prize + $125 matching grant to non-profit organization/sustainability project of choice.

  • College(active, enrolled college or university student): $200 cash prize + $200 matching grant to non-profit organization/sustainability project of choice.

  • Recognition on the Green Community Connections and One Earth Film Festival website.

  • Recognition in local press (specific media outlets to be determined).

SUBMISSION RULES/GUIDELINES:

Contest entries may be by an individual, or by a group of any size (for example -- a group of friends, an afterschool program, an entire class).

Film length. Films by entrants in the 3rd-8th grade level categories may submit a film of no shorter than 3 minutes, and no longer than 8 minutes. Films by entrants in 9th grade through college level may submit a film of no shorter than 5 minutes, and no longer than 8 minutes.

Film format. Please submit your film on DVDs in 2 formats.

1)      Standard DVD (2 DVD copies), playable on a standard DVD player, as well as on Mac or Windows platforms.

2)      Digital file (1 DVD copy),a high quality digital file (.Mov Apple Quicktime Movie, .WMV Windows Media Video, MPEG/MPEG-4, Flash video)

Please testthe DVDs before submitting them; if they are unable to be viewed by judges, they will be ineligible for consideration in the contest.

Please label each of the 3 above DVDs with your film name, entrant name, and contact phone number number (phone number for an adult over age 18).

Additionally, the Entrant oath & permission* form must be completed, and hard copies of the pages must be placed in a sealed manila envelope and accompany the film submission.

Download the Entrant Oath and Permission Form (.pdf)

The final deadline for submissions is Friday, January 25th at 5P.Location for dropping off DVD submissions and paperwork is:  807 Forest Avenue, River Forest, IL, 60305 (NE corner of Forest and Chicago Ave.). Please drop your DVDs and required paperwork in a sealed manila envelope into the mail slot. *Note that your submission DVD copies will not be returned to you.

*In submitting a film, and signing the application form, all entrants agree to the terms and conditions of the contest and that Green Community Connections is not liable for any unauthorized or inappropriate sharing of films. Please note that violence, profanity or direct attacks on individuals or organizations will not be accepted.

JUDGING CRITERIA:

Judges will check for adherence to submission rules and guidelines (including film length, film formats, etc. as described above). They will seek entries that cover the assigned sustainability topics (water, waste, food, transportation, energy) with an engaging, informative, inspiring, creative execution. Submissions must show a strong (research-supported) understanding of the topic/s and related, key issues. Submissions must share/highlight solutions to issues within the entrants’ chosen sustainability topic/s.

Adult guidance is accepted, but all submissions must be student led, and all hands-on work (e.g., creative idea generation, script writing, filming, etc.) is intended for students. No adult implementation will be allowed (adult technical guidance and some editing help are acceptable). Age-appropriate “errors” are admitted (e.g., unintentional spelling errors for younger students).

COMPLETE TIMELINE:

Friday, January 25, 2013 at 5P – DVD submissions (in proper file & DVD formats) and accompanying paperwork due

Monday, February 11, 2013 by 5P – Winners notified

Weekend of March 1, 2013 (exact date/time TBD) – Winning films screened during One Earth Film Festival 2013.

Questions? Please contact Katie Morris katie.a.morris@gmail.com, or Sue Crothers  suebillgee@comcast.net