When organizers of last year’s Environmental Film Fest met to assess the season, a big concern was the lack of young people attending the Sunday afternoon screenings. Why didn’t they come to these presentations that are, after all, talking about their future?
How, organizers wondered, could they get young people more involved?
The answer: Ask them if they would like to pick and promote the films and have showings at their schools.
The result is another evolution of the long-running film series that has been offered almost annually in the Quad-Cities since 2006 at various venues and sponsored by various organizations. Kathy Wine, executive director of River Action, one of the organizations sponsoring the current series, said she was pleased with the outcome from this new approach.
“We’re really enthused,” she said. “The students are really engaged. We got such a good response.”
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To get youth involved, organizers invited environmental clubs from area high schools and colleges to join in the planning and executing, and four responded. These groups chose from a list of 20 current films and then agreed to promote them within their schools.
The Green Team from Davenport North High School picked “Youth Unstoppable,” a documentary that follows young people on the front lines of climate action over a 12-year period, showing the evolution of a diverse network, rising up to shape the world they will live in.
“The goal is to get the public interested and to enjoy the film,” Landen Freeman, 18, a Green Team member, said of picking “Unstoppable.”
“It’s an impactful film. It really moved me. It is important to learn about things going on around the world. It’s inspiring.”
All six of this year’s films, beginning Jan. 22 and ending March 5, will be shown at 2 p.m. Sundays, although the venues will vary. In addition to youth involvement in climate, topics will include industrial agriculture, bees, the national disagreement over whether public lands should be preserved or used, the adventure of ice climbing and the shrinking Dead Sea.
Single admission for films is $5; a season pass is $20 and sponsorships are $50.
After each film, a “reflection speaker” will talk about the topics and encourage questions and discussion from the audience.
North High hopes to organize a panel of speakers, including Brittany Costello, Miss Scott County, whose platform is improving waterways. Freeman, of the Green Team, also hopes to have students from Davenport Central and West to “reflect on the film, what it means and how we should apply ourselves individually.”
Students are promoting the film through social media, by making posters to place around the school and talking to friends and family. They will greet the public at the auditorium and have a display table showcasing their projects.
In addition to films chosen by students, series organizers and the Quad-City Jewish Federation, a sponsor, each picked one.
THE SCHEDULE
'The Seeds of Vandana Shiva'
2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22, Figge Art Museum, hosted by the Quad-City Environmental Film Series.
This film tells the story of a woman in India who battles what she regards as the myth of the “Green Revolution” and its promise of “feeding the world” with industrial-scale agriculture and patented, genetically modified seeds. These practices are “reducing traditional farmers and entire communities to inescapable servitude,” she says, stressing that traditional practices are sustainable, will be healthier for people and are the “only way forward.”
Reflection speakers are Moselle Singh, of Madison, Wis., and Patti and George Naylor of Churdan, in west central Iowa.
Singh is an artist who has worked at various nonprofit organizations including in India with Vandana Shiva. Growing up, she experienced the effects of industrial farming, which catalyzed her activism.
The Naylors are organic farmers; in the early 2000s, George was a lead plaintiff in a national lawsuit against Monsanto, an American agrichemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation best known for its development of Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide. Monsanto has since been purchased by Bayer.
'My Garden of a Thousand Bees'
2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, Galvin Fine Arts Center, St. Ambrose University, hosted by the university’s Green Life environmental club.
A wildlife filmmaker spends his time during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown filming all the bees he could find in his urban garden in Bristol, England. He develops relationships with individual bees.
Reflection speaker is Kraig McPeek, field office supervisor, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
'Youth Unstoppable'
2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 5, Davenport North High School auditorium.
'The Ground Between Us'
2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, Augustana College Olin Hall Auditorium, hosted by the student Sierra Club.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and the Elliott State Forest in Oregon are three prized natural areas that came under threat during the Trump administration. Their futures remain up for grabs, as a divided public argues over whether these lands should be used or left alone, whether they should be opened to gas and oil extraction, ranching and logging or managed for their biodiversity and ecological services. The film presents these debates alongside the day-to-day realities of three families who hold vastly different connections and perspectives on public lands.
Reflection speaker is to be determined.
'Black Ice'
2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26, Figge Art Museum, Davenport, hosted by Clean Sphere, the environmental club of Black Hawk College, Moline.
This 35-minute climbing film follows a crew from Memphis, Tenn., to the frozen wilds of Montana. Along the way, “cultural boundaries all but disappear, helping to restore belief in a better world,” according to the trailer.
Reflection speaker is to be determined.
'Dead Sea Guardians'
2 p.m. Sunday, March 5, Figge Art Museum, Davenport, hosted by the Jewish Federation of the Quad-Cities.
The Dead Sea, a landlocked salt lake on the border between Israel and Jordan is the lowest place on Earth and home to critically endangered species of flora and fauna. It also is dying because its replenishing waters from the Jordan River have been siphoned off upstream for agriculture and factories.
This film explains a plan to save the sea by pumping in desalinated water from the Mediterranean.
Reflection speakers are Yoav Kleinman and Ido Glass, film producers based in Israel, joining via Zoom.
