Environmental Film Festival
Those of us in the DC region are blessed with an abundance of film festivals. In fact, DC is highly regarded as a center for documentary film production, with places like the National Geographic, the Smithsonian, the Discovery Channel, and PBS all in our backyard. So letting another film festival slip through the cracks is all too possible.We are, in fact, in the midst of the DC Environmental Film Festival right now! This year, there are 14 films that deal specifically with food and agriculture. The festival began on March 13 and runs until the 25th, so you may have missed some of the films that have already shown. But there are six films related to food still to come!
- March 23, 7pm at various venues is the Student Short Environmental Film Festival
- March 23, 7pm, AFI Silver Theater is hosting An Evening with Animator BILL PLYMPTON
- March 23, 8:15pm at American University is the Washington Premiere of Delicious Peace Grows in a Ugandan Coffee Bean
- March 24, 11:30am at the National Museum of Natural History is My Life as a Turkey
- March 24, 2:30pm at the National Museum of Natural History is Life: Challenges of Life
- March 25, 4pm at the National Museum of Natural History is the World Premiere of Symphony of the Soil
Most of these films are free, and many are family friendly. The Environmental Film Festival's website has more information, including a list of the films having to do with food and agriculture.
And just in time for Spring gardening, of particular interest might be the Symphony of Soil, "an artistic exploration of the miraculous substance that is soil." The final Food film in the series, it will conclude with a panel discussion moderated by Ann Harvey Yonkers, Co-director, FRESHFARM Markets, with filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia; Kate Scow, Professor of Soil Science and Microbial Ecology, Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California at Davis; Ignacio Chapela, Microbial Ecologist and Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley; John Reganold, Regents Professor of Soil Science, Washington State University and Zach Lester, Farmer, Tree and Leaf Farm, Unionville, Va.You can hear directly from the filmmaker as she was recently interviewed by the blog Biodynamics Now! Check out their post for the podcast.It may not be Hollywood, but these filmmakers are the true stars, bringing focus on issues that affect all of us deeply. So come for the "green carpet" and world premiere of this film. Hope you can make it out!