ENVIRONMENTAL YOUTH FORUM • 2014

FILMS & SPEAKERS

RIDDLE IN A BOTTLE
Directed by: Laura Sams and Robert Sams
30 m + 30 m performance with Laura and Robert Sams

Riddle in a Bottle shares how life on earth is connected through moving water. Laura and Robert, a.k.a. “The Riddle Solvers,” are two siblings who run a riddle-solving stand, where they solve riddles for 5¢ a piece.  We follow them as they solve a mysterious riddle from the ocean that reaches them on an inland lake… in a message in a magic bottle.

Laura Sams and Robert Sams are a  sister/brother creative team, who  create science-based films, books, music, educational media and curriculum that help people discover the natural world. Their work has been honored with over 50 international awards, including a Wildscreen Panda Award (which is often called the “Green Oscars”), a KIDS FIRST! Best of the Year Award, a National Parenting Publications (NAPPA) Gold Award, Parents’ Choice GOLD and many more. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

OCEAN FRONTIERS: THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA IN OCEAN STEWARDSHIP
Directed by: Karen Anspacher-Meyer
60 m + 20 m discussion with Chris Pincetch, Ph.D, Naturalist, Marine Biologist

Tainted waters, dying reefs, and failing fisheries-the myth of the boundless ocean is no more. But from the troubled waters now rises a new wave of hope, of prosperity through preservation, playing out in communities across the country and intimately captured in Ocean Frontiers.

The film takes us on an inspiring voyage to seaports and watersheds across the country-from the busy shipping lanes of Boston Harbor to an obscure little fishing community in the Pacific Northwest; from America’s coral reef playground in the Florida Keys to the nation’s premier seafood nursery in the Mississippi Delta. Here we meet an intermingling of unlikely allies, of industrial shippers and whale biologists, pig farmers and wetland ecologists, sport fishers and reef snorkelers and many more, all of them embarking on a new course of cooperation, in defense of the seas that sustain them.

Dr. Chris Pincetich, campaigns to save sea turtles and protect healthy ocean habitats. Chris’ sea turtle conservation work extends from the Gulf of Mexico, where he fought for increased wildlife rescue efforts during the BP oil spill, to nesting beach patrolling on the Pacific shores of Costa Rica. Chris has a doctorate in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California, Davis, and a B.S. in Marine Biology from University of California, Santa Cruz. Studying plastic pollution on our shorelines and in marine endangered species habitat is the focus of Chris’s current work in marine environmental toxicology.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

BAT CITY, U.S.A.
Directed by: Laura Brooks
36 m + 30 m discussion with Corky Quirk, NorCal Bats, rescue and education 

Bat City USA delves into Austin’s complicated relationship with a colony of Mexican free-tailed bats under the downtown Congress Avenue Bridge. Each year, thousands of people get a fascinating, close-up glimpse of the world’s largest urban bat colony amid the colorful downtown Austin, Texas setting. The film reveals how the bats moved into the bridge and survived eradication plans by hostile residents. Viewers discover how the bats eventually became a beloved part of what makes Austin unique and weird, mainly through the efforts of Merlin Tuttle, founder of Bat Conservation International, who convinced residents of the benefits of the bats.

Corky Quirk is the founder of NorCal Bats, an organization that provides care for injured bats and educational programs for libraries, school, nature programs, fairs and other events throughout the region. Corky has been working intensely with native bats since 2005 and has educated thousands of people. She works with injured and orphaned bats, returning them to the wild and keeps a captive colony of non-releasable bats for use in education.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

TRASHED
Directed by: Candida Brady
98 m + 20 m discussion with Kathy Wall, Household Hazardous Waste Coordinator,Marin Sanitary Service 

Jeremy Irons sets out to discover the extent and effects of the global waste problem, as he travels around the world to beautiful destinations tainted by pollution. This is a meticulous, brave investigative journey that takes Irons (and us) from skepticism to sorrow and from horror to hope.

Kathy Wall was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia where she earned her B.A in Environmental Engineering. She has dedicated her career to waste reduction, hazardous waste disposal and environmental safety issues. Kathy is currently the Household Hazardous Waste Coordinator at the Marin Sanitary Service where she helps educate residents and small businesses on how to properly dispose of common household hazardous waste materials in Marin County.  

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

MISLEAD: AMERICA’S SECRET EPIDEMIC
Directed by: Tamara Rubin
96 m

1 in 3 children is impacted by this environmental illness- 22,000,000 U.S. children today, but chances are they’ve never even tested your child. It conservatively costs the U.S. $100 billion annually, however a carefully crafted political campaign has made you think it’s not your problem. Think again.

Tamara Rubin is an internationally recognized, award winning lead-poisoning prevention advocate and documentary filmmaker. She took on the cause of childhood lead-poisoning when her own sons were poisoned by the work of a painting contractor in 2005.Since then Tamara has created a strong web and media presence for the cause of lead-poisoning prevention, in an effort to bring this message to the world: lead poisoning was not “solved” with the 1978 ban on lead in residential paint. She is committed to educating every parent about this wholly preventable environmental illness.Through her advocacy work, Tamara has personally helped thousands of families create safer homes and environments for their children.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

TINY: a story about living small
Directed by: Merete Mueller and Christopher Smith
60 m + 30 m discussion with Christopher Smith

Tiny, is a documentary about home, and how we find it.

The film follows one couple’s attempt to build a “tiny house” from scratch, and profiles other families who have downsized their lives into homes smaller than the average parking space. Through homes stripped down to their essentials, the film raises questions about good design, the nature of home, and the changing American Dream. Tiny is a coming-of-age story for a generation that is more connected, yet less tied-down than ever, and for a society redefining its priorities in the face of a changing financial and environmental climate. More than anything, Tiny invites its viewers to dream big and imagine living small.

Christopher Smith is the co-director and builder of the Tiny House featured in this documentary.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

MORE THAN HONEY
Directed by: Markus Imhoof
77m + 20m discussion  with Robert MacKimmie, City Bees

More Than Honey, a new documentary by the Swiss filmmaker Marcus Imhoof, is looking into the fascinating world of bees, showing small family beekeepers (including the beekeeper of ERSTE Foundation beehive, Heidrun Singer) and industrialized honey farms. More Than Honey is a film on the relationship between mankind and honeybees, about nature and about our future. Honeybees show us that stability is just as unhealthy as unlimited growth, that crises and disasters are triggering evolution and that salvation sometimes comes from a completely unexpected direction. An in-depth look at honeybee colonies in California, Switzerland, China and Australia.

Robert MacKimmie started City Bees in 1996 to assist our European honeybees, which are challenged by several parasites and a host of viruses. He has been keeping bees in San Francisco and Marin County for 18 years, becoming a full time beekeeper in 2009, using all-organic methods to keep his bees alive and prosperous. He is breeding local disease-resistant queen bees, sells his microclimate honey at several farmers’ markets locally, and teaches beekeeping throughout the Bay Area.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

THE ULTIMATE WISH: ENDING THE NUCLEAR AGE
Directed by: Robert Richter
40 m + 30 m discussion with Louise Dunlap,Umi Hagitani, Anti-Nuclear activists

Moving, unforgettable stories by living, courageous, inspirational women who survived two of the world’s most momentous radiation crises: 2011 Fukushima and 1945 Nagasaki. They are interlaced with nuclear experts and archival footage, some shocking, illuminating the largely unrecognized connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, and the growing global movements to abolish both.   The documentary focuses on women coping with  environmental catastrophes, and an alert to everyone today about the dangers of continued nuclear proliferation and nuclear power. It raises profound questions about war, technological failure, the courage to survive and the importance of taking positive actions to prevent future nuclear disasters.

Louise Dunlap, taught in east coast universities for many years. She now offers writing workshops for activists based on her book, Undoing the Silence: Six Tools for Social Change Writing and volunteers in anti-nuclear and environmental justice efforts.  In late 2011, she organized a peacewalk through the areas that would be devastated if California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant—located in earthquake & tsunami zones near San Luis Obispo—should experience a similar disaster. She is writing a book about family land and the roots of the environmental crisis in the attitudes of her settler ancestors.  Umi Hagitani was born in Ibaraki, 67 miles South of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactors, and grew up in downwind neighborhoods near Tokai Nuclear Power Plant, and Musashi Kogyo University’s Research Reactor. After she quit elementary school at age 10, she became a hardcore dropout, and pursued her love for everything Oceanic. She is currently a Japanese in diaspora, part-time QPOC, rape crisis counselor, and interpreter. She graduated from SFSU in Ethnic Studies and Women and Gender Studies. She works with the No Nukes Action Committee and groups from the US and East Asia to normalize conversations on struggles against the nuclear military-industrial complex in the face of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear accident. Her dreams are to evacuate her mother and decontaminate the Pacific Ocean.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

BLACKFISH
Directed by: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
83 m + 20 m discussion  with Professor Jonathan Stern PhD, Department of Biology SFSU

Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a notoriously aggressive Orca that killed three people while in captivity. The three deaths prompted the ongoing court case between Sea World, and OSHA , the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite uses shocking  documentary footage and emotional interviews to present a convincing case against keeping these wild animals for human entertainment.

Jonathan Stern studies minke whales in the Northeast Pacific Ocean, and has conducted research on killer, pilot,fin,humpback and gray whales, as well as bottlenose dolphins. He served as the Conservation Chair for the National Board of Directors for the American Cetacean Society. He currently teaches in the Biology Department at San Francisco State University and is adjunct professor at Texas A&M University. An ecologist by training, he studies the role of marine predators in ocean ecosystems. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

GREEN STREETS—Turning Trash Into Cash in an American Inner City

A WORK-IN-PROGRESS
Directed by: Sophie Constantinou

30 m + 30 m discussion with Sophie Constantinou and Tyrone Mullins

Green Streets:Turning Trash Into Cash in an American Inner City follows 28-year-old entrepreneur Tyrone Mullins and his friends as they turn trash into cash in the distressed San Francisco housing projects where they live. Through trial and error, they learn to haul 150,000 gallons of waste per month, creating desperately needed jobs and establishing recycling where all previous efforts had failed.

Sophie Constantinou has produced, directed and photographed several award-winning documentaries exploring a diverse range of personal and universal subjects.  Tyrone Mullins is a founder of Green Streets, a community owned and operated green business that manages recycling and composting, educates our neighbors on how to reduce waste and provides integrated janitorial services.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

STANDING ON SACRED GROUND: Episode 1
Directed by: Toby McLeod
60 m + 30 m discussion with invited guests Caleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem Wintu tribe and director Toby McLeod

Indigenous shamans resist massive government projects that threaten the fragile balance of nature and culture. In the Russian Republic of Altai, traditional native people create and patrol their own mountain parks, trying to rein in tourism and reroute a pipeline to China planned by state-owned Gazprom. In northern California, Winnemem Wintu teenagers grind herbs on a sacred medicine rock their ancestors used for a thousand years, as elders protest U.S. government plans to enlarge Shasta Dam and forever submerge the touchstone of a tribe. Narrated by Graham Greene. Episode one of the four-film ”Standing on Sacred Ground” series. With Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabeg), Oren Lyons (Onondaga), Barry Lopez and Satish Kumar. Narrated by Graham Greene, with cultural stories narrated by Tantoo Cardinal.

Christopher (Toby) McLeod has been the Project Director of Earth Island Institute’s Sacred Land Film Project since 1984. He produced and directed In the Light of Reverence (2001) and has made three other award-winning, hour-long documentary films that were broadcast on national television McLeod has a master’s degree in journalism from U.C. Berkeley and a B.A. in American History from Yale. He is a journalist who works in film, video, print, and still photography. In 1985, McLeod received a Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmaking. Toby has been working with indigenous communities as a filmmaker, journalist and photographer for more than 30 years.Caleen Sisk-Franco is the Spiritual Leader and Tribal Chief of the Winnemem Wintu tribe. In their language Winnemem Wintu translates to Middle Water People as the McCloud River is bounded by the Upper Sacramento to the West and the Pit River to the East. “We were born from water, we are of the water, and we fight to protect it”. The Winnemem Wintu tribe is indigenous to northern California and has been formally recognized by the California Native American Heritage Commission, an agency of the State of California with responsibility for preserving and protecting Native American sites and cultural resources in California.

PANEL DISCUSSION – 45 minutes

              “HOW I BECAME A  YOUNG ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST

                                                           AND

                                             HOW YOU CAN TOO”

            Nicole Newnham – Map Your World

            Maya Salsedo – Food Justice

            Tyrone Mullins – Founder, community operated and owned recycling,

                                                     waste and janitorial services

            Mark Figueroa-Water issues

            Barbara Jefferson – Generation Waking Up!