Environmental Film Festival
From Sustainability
MIT Environmental Film Festival
NOTE: Due to popular demand, screenings have been moved to a larger venue in MIT Building 4 (either 4-270 or 4-370)
TUESDAY & THURSDAY SCREENINGS Download pdf version
Dinner is served at 6:00pm, and the films will begin at 6:30pm.
Jan 16, Tue
Troubled Waters - A reminder that safe water's "primary source" is not a 12-ounce plastic bottle. It's the world's rivers, streams and lakes that are being strained by the world's burgeoning population and consumption. Acclaimed actress Lynn Redgrave hosts the 60-minute documentary, which was filmed in various locations around the world, including Porto Alegre, Brazil; the Middle East; Bolivia; Waukesha, WI; Washington, D.C.; Boston, MA, and others, to capture stories of water's evaporating availability. UCC justice advocates joined ecumenical partners in February to raise water-availability concerns at the World Council of Churches' 9th international assembly.
Water Warriors (Preview only) - While corporations urge local governments to privatize municipal water systems, communities around the world organize to ensure affordable access to this life sustaining resource. Water Warriors is the story of one community’s determination to fight the seemingly inevitable path of water privatization.
With guest speakers Zandra Rice and Deborah Lapidus, representing Corporate Accountability International.
Jan 18, Thu
The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa (25 min) - The photo-documentary report exposes the ugly underbelly of what is thought to be an escalating global trade in toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap collected in North America and Europe and sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers. Produced by the Basel Action Network.
Exporting Harm: The High-tech Trashing of Asia (25 min) - A documentary on the dumping of toxic computer wastes to China that continues to open peoples' eyes to the true horror of the high-tech revolution. Produced by the Basel Action Network.
Jan 23, Tue, Room 4-370
The Climate of Change (30 min) - Mayors from around the country gather to experience the impacts of global warming firsthand in Alaska. Strikingly beautiful imagery of a quickly changing climate.
Being Caribou (72 min) - Environmentalist Leanne Allison and wildlife biologist Karsten Heuer follow a herd of 120,000 caribou on foot, across 1,500 kilometres of rugged Arctic tundra. The husband-and-wife team wants to raise awareness of threats to the caribou's survival.
Jan 25, Thu, Room 4-370
Ecological Design: Inventing the Future (64 min) - This video illuminates the emergence of ecological design in the twentieth century. Beginning with the work of Buckminster Fuller, from the 1920s through the 1960s.
Maquilapolis: City of Factories (68 min) - An award-winning documentary film by Sergio de la Torre about globalization and working conditions in the maquilas of San Diego-Tijuana. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Jan 30, Tue, Room 4-370
Is God Green? (60 min) - A new holy war is growing within the conservative evangelical community, with implications for both the global environment and American politics. For years, liberal Christians and others have made protection of the environment a moral commitment. Now, a number of conservative evangelicals are joining the fight, arguing that man's stewardship of the planet is a biblical imperative and calling for action to stop global warming. Followed by a discussion with guest Rev. Amy McCreath. Amy is the coordinator of the Technology and Culture Forum and the Episcopal Minister at MIT.
Feb 1, Thu, Room 4-370
Total Denial (74 min) - The story of the construction of the UNOCAL/TOTAL oil pipeline in Burma. An unprecedented legal battle will unfold in a US courtroom, shocking the world with its revelations. Fifteen plaintiffs who've never left the Burmese jungle will battle head-to-head with two corporate giants. The outcome of this struggle will profoundly affect the actions of corporations worldwide.
WEEKEND FILMS Download pdf version
Films will begin at 5:00pm and 6:30pm, dinner will be served in between at 6:00pm.
Feb 2, Fri, Room 4-270
5:00pm - Dying to Breathe: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in South Africa - A documentary about why the lives of ordinary people living in Sasolburg and South Durban have become a daily struggle for health because of excessively high levels of air pollution.
6:30pm - Shipbreakers (42 min) - Welcome to Alang, India, the site of a gargantuan scrap yard where oceangoing ships come to die. Forty thousand Indians live and work here, dismembering and scavenging the hulks of 400 vessels every year.
8:00pm - An Inconvenient Truth - Director Davis Guggenheim eloquently weaves the science of global warming with Mr. Gore's personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change. A longtime advocate for the environment, Gore presents a wide array of facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling way.
Feb 3, Sat, Room 4-270
5:00pm - Maquila: A Tale of Two Mexicos (55 min) - The film examines the impact of corporate globalization on Mexico, focusing on the maquiladoras, U.S.-owned factories employing cheap Mexican labor.
6:30pm - The Charcoal People (68 min) - This film by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Nigel Noble documents the workaday lives of Brazilian peasants who cut down trees in the Amazon rain forest and burn the wood in earthen kilns to make charcoal, an essential ingredient for the manufacture of pig iron in the U.S.
8:00pm - The Future of Food - Offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by this new technology. The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply.
Sponsors
- Department of Urban Studies and Planning
- Students for Global Sustainability
- The MIT Chapter of Student Pugwash USA
- Association For India's Development (AID) Boston-MIT Chapter
- Groundwork USA
- S*: Student Working Group for Sustainability@MIT
- GSC Funding Board
