The Eagle Hunter's Son - (c) Eden Film Stromberg Productions
The Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital seeks to advance public understanding of the environment through the power of film.
Founded in 1993, the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital has become one of the world’s largest and most influential showcases of environmental film and a major collaborative cultural event in Washington, D.C. Each March the Festival presents a diverse selection of high quality environmental films, including many Washington, D.C., U.S. and world premieres. Documentaries, narratives, animations and shorts are shown, as well as archival, experimental and children’s films at venues throughout the city. Films are screened at partnering museums, embassies, libraries, universities and local theaters and are attended by large audiences. Selected to provide fresh perspectives on global environmental issues, most Festival films are accompanied by discussions with filmmakers, environmental experts and special guests, including national decision makers and thought leaders, and are free to the public. The Festival’s Web site serves as a global resource for environmental film throughout the year.
As the Environmental Film Festival launched its annual celebration of the natural world on screens across Washington, D.C., we explored one of the most controversial and timely topics of our day: the critical relationship between energy and the environment. Thank you for joining us in March as we presented 150 diverse and engaging films from 40 countries, enhanced by the perspectives and knowledge of 70 filmmakers and 130 special guests, whose creative energy enlivened the Festival.
Renowned oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle appeared with the portrait film-in-progress, Mission Blue, distinguished biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson discussed his two recent books about ants and visionary Canadian environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki attended the screening of Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie.
Energy powers our world and is essential to our modern daily lives, but accessing energy sources can involve risk to the health of the common environment that we all depend on for our wellbeing. The most notorious instance of environmental devastation in the past year has, of course, been the impact of the BP Oil spill, addressed in Stories from the Gulf Coast – Living with The BP Oil Disaster. A special sneak preview of the film, The Pipe, captured the threat of oil pollution to the livelihoods of fishermen and farmers on a pristine coast of Ireland. Oil Rocks – City Above the Sea, a stunning portrait of the first and largest offshore oil city ever built, commissioned by Stalin over 60 years ago in the Caspian Sea, was this year’s winner of the Festival’s Polly Krakora Award for artistry in film.
Closer to home, the menace of mountaintop removal mining to the water, air and landscape of West Virginia was examined in two films, On Coal River and Burning the Future: Coal in America. As the availability of fossil fuels shrinks, even oilmen recognize the need for change, shown in Houston We Have a Problem. The 4th Revolution: Energy Autonomy highlighted progress across the globe in moving away from reliance on fossil fuels toward the development of clean, renewable energy. The use of wind power in two small communities in the United States was shown in Windfall and Islands in the Wind. The promise of solar energy was captured in the film, Burning in the Sun, about the first solar panel business in sun-drenched Mali. The bold decision by Ecuador to leave the country’s Amazonian oil fields unexploited to safeguard their natural wealth was examined in two films: A Future Without Oil and Yasuni: Two Seconds of Life.
Among Festival highlights are 80 Washington, D.C., United States and World premieres, including the film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, winner of the 2010 Palme D’Or at Cannes; the multi-award-winning Russian psychological thriller, How I Ended This Summer; Werner Herzog’s new film, Happy People: A Year in the Taiga and Chilean documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light. We hope that you were able to join us for a Festival full of films that deepened our understanding of the relationship between our planet, its resources and ourselves.
The 2011 Festival was dedicated to the memory of Richard N. Goldman (1920 - 2010).
For general inquiries, please e-mail info@envirofilmfest.org.
