Environmentally-themed movies are hitting the festival circuit hard (Source: Sailko at Wikimedia Commons)
If you think Al Gore’s movie, ‘An
Inconvenient Truth,’ is one of the only
environmental films out there, think again.
There are so many movies about the environment
that entire festivals have been created to
showcase them. Jennifer Guerra has more:
Transcript
If you think Al Gore’s movie, ‘An
Inconvenient Truth,’ is one of the only
environmental films out there, think again.
There are so many movies about the environment
that entire festivals have been created to
showcase them. Jennifer Guerra
has more:
Science films have come a long way from this.
(sound of old science film)
Now, they’ve got flashy trailers, famous narrators and edgy music. There are hundreds of
these environmentally-themed movies and they’re hitting the festival circuit hard. Korea,
Italy, Israel, DC, Colorado, Michigan.
Susan Woods got to choose which movies to include in Michigan’s first ever Green on
the Big Screen film festival.
“It was quite daunting in the beginning, to tell you the truth, when I started looking
up all these films. I thought oh my goodness, how can I select them. There’s too
many to select.”
She eventually settled on about 30 films, including King Corn. Curt Ellis produced the
documentary, which is all about – yup, you guess it – corn and our dependence on it for
almost everything we eat.
(sound from movie)
“When you’re telling a story about the natural world, you really have to be able to
transport people to the place you’re talking about.”
And Ellis thinks the best way to do that – short of lecturing people in a cornfield in the
middle of Iowa – is to show them a film.
“The reason we make documentaries – Lord knows it’s not for the profit – the
reason we make film is because we believe film can make a difference.”
“My opinion of media effects in terms of film actually producing social action is
pretty limited.”
That’s Daniel Herbert. He teaches film at the University of Michigan. You could say he’s
got a healthy amount of skepticism when it comes to films’ impact on environmental
change.
“Unless you have policies in your city government without recycling, what does it
matter if you’ve watched An Inconvenient Truth? If Al Gore’s telling you to buy
$30 light bulbs and you make 9 bucks at Starbucks, what’s it matter?”
Plus he says you run the risk of having audiences think that just because they watched the
film they’ve somehow participated in solving the problem.
That said, if he had to choose between showing an environmental film at a festival, a
commercial movie theater or on TV? Herbert says he’d pick the festival. Sure, there’s
probably a greater audience to be had with television, and it’s a little more convenient to
just Netflix the film and watch it from home, but you lose something that way.
Susan Woods – she’s from the Michigan film festival – she says a festival can provide a
whole different experience.
“The difference is that these people are sitting home in a dark room as opposed to
being with a group of people who have the same mind set. And I think that’s the big
difference.”
And, she says, at a festival, if you feel inspired by one of the films, you can go up to a
director afterward and ask questions, or talk with a climate change expert about solutions
or sign up with a local environmental group.
Something you definitely wouldn’t be able to do sitting at home alone in the dark with
your TV.
For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.