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Oscar Nominated director Josh Fox (GASLAND) continues in his deeply personal style, investigating climate change – the greatest threat our world has ever known. Traveling to 12 countries on 6 continents, the film acknowledges that it may be too late to stop some of the worst consequences and asks, what is it that climate change can’t destroy? What is so deep within us that no calamity can take it away?

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125 MIN

Tidewater

Tidewater explores the challenge of sea level rise in Virginia and North Carolina, encompassing Hampton Roads, arguably the region whose vulnerability most affects our overall national security. An area rich in diversity and historical significance, it is the second most vulnerable community in the U.S. to sea level rise, after New Orleans. Tidewater will highlight the innovative whole-of-government problem-solving model being pioneered by local leaders.

Rainmakers of Nganyi

Researchers at Kenyan universities were faced with a problem: the weather forecasts that they were providing weren’t being taken seriously. The people did not trust the scientific forecasts and listened only to traditional rainmakers. So the researchers began to use rainmakers as communication agents in an attempt to convince people to listen to their forecasts. But then they started to notice striking similarities between their predictions and those of the rainmakers. Were they really forecasters? Were they really meteorologists? And can they make it rain?

The Call from the Sea

The Bajau are an indigenous, sea nomadic group that live on top of the ocean in Indonesia. This short documentary looks at the ocean through the Bajau’s eyes. A poetic, personal story about the fragile state of the ocean and the people who live closest to it.

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90% of the goods we consume in the West are manufactured in far-off lands and brought to us by ship. The cargo shipping industry is a key player in world economy and forms the basis of our very model of modern civilization; without it, it would be impossible to fulfill the ever-increasing demands of our societies. Yet the functioning and regulations of this business remain largely obscure to many, and its hidden costs affect us all. Who pulls the strings in this multi-billion dollar business? To what extent does the industry control our policy makers? How does it affect the environment above and below the waterline? And what’s life like for modern seafarers?

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90 MIN

Saving Mes Aynak

Saving Mes Aynak follows Afghan archaeologist Qadir Temori as he races against time to save a 5,000-year-old archaeological site in Afghanistan from imminent demolition. A Chinese state-owned mining company is closing in on the ancient site, eager to harvest $100 billion dollars worth of copper buried directly beneath the archaeological ruins. Only 10% of Mes Aynak has been excavated and some believe future discoveries at the site have the potential to redefine the history of Afghanistan and the history of Buddhism itself. Qadir Temori and his fellow Afghan archaeologists face what seems an impossible battle against the Chinese, the Taliban and local politics to save their cultural heritage from likely erasure. Saving Mes Aynak examines the conflict between cultural preservation and economic opportunity through the lens of the Afghan archaeologists and local villagers who work and live near Mes Aynak.

Our Last Refuge

This is the story of the Badger-Two Medicine, the sacred homeland of the Blackfeet Nation, and the decades-long struggle to protect it from gas exploration. Located at the intersection of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier National Park, and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, the Badger is an undeveloped expanse of mountains, ridges, river valleys, and wetlands. In 1981, the U.S. government illegally leased the Badger at $1 per acre for oil and gas development—without consulting the Blackfeet Tribe and without conducting a proper environmental review. One of the highest profile conservation efforts in recent history, Our Last Refuge is the first in-depth telling of this critical struggle.

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86 MIN

Su Rynard’s wide-ranging and contemplative documentary The Messenger explores our deep-seated connection to birds and warns that the uncertain fate of songbirds might mirror our own. Moving from the northern reaches of the Boreal Forest to the base of Mount Ararat in Turkey to the streets of New York, The Messenger brings us face-to-face with a remarkable variety of human-made perils that have devastated thrushes, warblers, orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks and many other airborne music-makers.

“Their findings unequivocally caution on the necessity of averting the birds’ extinction because they are an integral part of the ecological system… The slow-motion close-ups alone should convince you these magnificent creatures are well worth the effort.” – Martin Tsai, The Los Angeles Times

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89 MIN

Jumbo Wild

Director: Nick Waggoner

For decades, First Nations, conservationists, backcountry skiers and snowboarders have fought a proposed large-scale ski resort deep in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia. After 24 years of opposition, what more will it take to keep Jumbo wild for good? This film explores the value of protected wilderness and the ever-encroaching battle against development at all costs. Breathtaking beauty, filmed in British Columbia.

Moving the Giants

Director: Michael Ramsey

Moving the Giants, A Urgent Plan to Save the Planet tells the story of arborist David Milarch, as he helps California coast redwoods migrate northward to survive climate changes that threaten their current habitat. His is one path to promote “treequestration,” a mass movement to use one of nature’s most prolific methods to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce the amount of future climate change.

This event is sponsored by the Athena Cinema and Alden Library.

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Drilling down the Antarctic icefields in the 1950’s, the former brought about a sweeping change in our vision of the world as they discovered the origins of climate change. Today, the latter offer new means for transforming man’s imprint on its environment.

With Ice & Sky, Wild-Touch and Luc Jacquet travel back to the genesis of collective intelligence and forge a bond between the past and present stakeholders and the general public. Stemming from such a promise, a dynamic will encourage each one of us to join forces and respond to climate change, and together rewrite the rules of our future society.

This event is sponsored by the Athena Cinema and Alden Library.

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89 MIN

Sonic Sea

Directors: Michelle Dougherty, Daniel Hinerfeld

Sonic Sea is a 60-minute documentary about the devastating impact of industrial and military ocean noise on whales and other marine life. The film begins with a mystery: the unexplained stranding and mass mortality of several species of whales in the Bahamas in March 2000. As the mystery unfolds, the film explores the critical role of sound in the sea, and the sudden, dramatic changes human activity is inflicting on the ocean’s delicate acoustic habitat — changes that threaten the ability of whales and other marine animals to prosper, to function, and ultimately, to survive

Pangolin

Director: Katie Schuler

Journey of a single pangolin, from the moment it is taken from the wild to its final destination in China. Filmed on location across three countries with the help of reformed poachers and wildlife enforcement officers, the film acts as a surrogate for an estimated hundred thousand pangolins that are poached and smuggled annually in SE Asia and Africa. Pangolin offers audiences the opportunity to experience the life, death and afterlife of one of the most illeally trafficked and endangered mammals on the planet.

Monarchs: The Milkweed Mission

Director: Turk Pipkin

The latest conservation film from director Turk Pipkin and The Nobelity Project, The Milkweed Mission tracks the amazing year-long path of North America’s main Monarch butterfly migration, documenting threats from logging and community conservation challenges in the winter reserves in Michoacán, Mexico to loss of essential pollinators and milkweeds due to droughts, climate change and chemical agriculture across the U.S. and into the northern migration range in Canada.

This event is sponsored by the Athena Cinema and Alden Library.

Showtimes: ONE NIGHT ONLY: Wednesday, February 22nd at 7:00PM. Free admission!

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