ACFF SPECIAL EDITION
4 Days, 5 Venues, 46 Films Screening for the Future 2015 ACFF Schedule
Fall 2015 | Vol 4 No 2
“Gray Road” | The Unbranded Team
4 days American Conservation 5 venues Film Festival 2015 46 films Season 13: Oct 23–25
See complete schedule of films, page 14. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies National Conservation Training Center Opera House Reynolds Hall Shepherdstown Opera House Photo courtesy of Mari-Lynn C Evans, Director and Producer
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Blood on the Mountain, 93 min, Filmmakers: Mari-Lynn Evans, Jordan Freeman — Blood on the Mountain is a searing investigation into the economic and environmental injustices that have resulted from industrial control in West Virginia. This new feature documentary details the struggles of a hard-working, misunderstood people, who have historically faced limited choices and have never benefited fairly from the rich, natural resources of their land. This film delivers a striking portrait of a fractured population, exploited and besieged by corporate interests and abandoned by the powers elected to represent them. 6:30 pm Friday at the Byrd Center for Legislative Studies, Block 1 u
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Revolution, 86 min, Filmmaker: Rob Stewart — Produced by Gus Van Sant, Revolution follows Rob Stewart, director of the documentary Sharkwater, through 15 countries — from the coral reefs in Papua, New Guinea and deforestation in Madagascar to the largest and most destructive environmental project in history in Alberta, Canada. He reveals that all of our actions are interconnected and that environmental degradation, species loss, ocean acidification, pollution and food/water scarcity are reducing the Earth’s ability to house humans. 8:05 pm Sunday at the Opera House, Block 15
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The Bat Man of Mexico, U.S. Premiere, 60 min, Filmmaker: Tom Mustill — Rodrigo, “The Bat Man of Mexico,” has been saving the amazing bats of his homeland since childhood, when he kept vampire bats in his bathroom. Now his favorite drink, tequila, is at stake. The bat that pollinates the plant that this famous liquor comes from is in trouble. Rodrigo decides to track their migration to save them. He braves hurricanes, snakes, Mayan tombs and seas of cockroaches to find and save the bats. This is a rare heart-warming and breathtaking conservation success story. 1 pm Saturday at the Shepherdstown Opera House, Block 5
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, 85 min, Filmmakers: Kip Andersen, Keegan Kuhn — Follow filmmaker Kip Andersen as he uncovers one of the most destructive industries facing the planet today and investigates why the world’s leading environmental organizations are too afraid to talk about animal agriculture. This documentary reveals the devastating environmental impact large-scale factory farming has on our planet. 1:20 Saturday at the NCTC Byrd Auditorium, Block 3 and 7:35 pm Saturday at the Opera House, Block 9
Unbranded, 106 min, Filmmaker: Phillip Baribeau — 3,000 miles, 16 wild horses and 4 men are the raw ingredients of an outrageous plot. To demonstrate the value of wild mustangs, these men adopt, train and ride their horses from the Mexican border to Canada through the wildest terrain of the American West. Unbranded is a soaring tale of danger and resilience, an emotionally charged odyssey that shines a bright light on the complex plight of our country’s wild horses. 7:05 pm Friday at the Opera House, Block 2 u Photo courtesy of Ben Masters
Merchants of Doubt Green Fire Award Winner, 94 min, Filmmaker: Robert Kenner — Robert Kenner, acclaimed director of Food Inc., lifts the curtain on a secretive group of highly charismatic, silver-tongued punditsfor-hire who present themselves in the media as scientific authorities — yet contrarily are aiming to spread maximum confusion about well-studied public threats ranging from toxic chemicals to pharmaceuticals to climate change. 7:30 pm Saturday at Reynolds Hall, Block 10
Overburden, 65 min, Filmmaker: Chad Stevens — After a coal mine disaster kills her brother, a pro-coal activist joins forces with a tree-hugging environmentalist to take on the most dangerous coal company in America, Massey Energy. As the coal industry faces extinction, will our two heroines be able to heal their wounded community? 4:15 pm Saturday at the NCTC Byrd Auditorium, Block 7 Photo courtesy of Chad A Stevens, Director
Dare to be Wild, 102 min, Filmmaker: Vivienne DeCourcy — From the green hills of Ireland to arid Ethiopia, to London’s Chelsea, Dare to be Wild is a romantic adventure based on the against-all-odds true story of Mary Reynolds, a modern-day heroine, whose quest is to show the world the power of wild nature as she reaches for her dreams—one garden, one vast desert, at a time. 3:25 pm Saturday at the NCTC Family Theater, Block 6 u
Islands of Creation, ACFF Broadcast Award Winner, 46 min, Filmmakers: Nathan Dappen and Neil Losin — In the Solomon Islands, Albert Uy is trying to do what Charles Darwin never did: catch evolution in the act. But the islands’ resources are being exploited and the wildlife there is at risk. Islands of Creation documents the race against time to prove the existence of a new species before it’s lost forever. 12:30 pm Saturday at the NCTC Byrd Auditorium, Block 3
Chasing Ice, 75 min, Filmmaker: Jeffrey Orlowski — The story of one photographer’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet: the Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, James Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his labor. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. 1:20 pm Saturday at the NCTC Byrd Auditorium, Block 3
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Life on the Line, U.S. Premiere, 20 min, Filmmakers: Nick and Cheryl Dean— Wallacea is the biographical designation for a group of mainly Indonesian islands. One of the areas of the world with the widest range of endemic biodiversity, it remains virtually unknown to most people. This short film highlights the region’s biodiversity and the efforts of a few individuals to protect this fragile ecosystem and its inhabitants. 2:50 pm Saturday at the Opera House, Block 5
Tiger Tiger, DC Environmental Film Fest Presents at ACFF, 91 min, Filmmaker: George Butler — Spotlighting the tiger as the most charismatic animal on earth, this adventure-conservation film takes the audience to the Sundarbans region on the border of India and Bangladesh. Known as one of the most dangerous places on Earth, this tidal mangrove forest may be largest, wildest remaining tiger population. Tiger Tiger follows Dr. Alan Rabinowitz as he confronts the dangerous terrain both tiger and man must navigate in their struggle to survive. Asking the essential question of wildlife conservation everywhere — how can man co-exist with nature? — the film seeks to communicate the desperate state of tigers and the vital work being done to save them. 6:15 pm Sunday at the Opera House, Block 15 u All images provided by ACFF except where noted.
Screening
For the Future By Amy Mathews Amos
A few weeks ago, I was clearing out clutter
in my den and found, tucked away on various shelves of our television stand, old DVDs—remnants of past seasons of Shepherdstown’s American Conservation Film Festival (ACFF). I’ve served on the Selection and Programming Committee of ACFF for six years now, and although I’m supposed to return all copies of our films once I’ve finished reviewing them, I’ve hung on to some that I particularly liked. But that cleaning day was time for some serious culling. So I flipped through the piles one more time to make sure there weren’t any films I couldn’t bear to lose. There were only two. And both were student films. Student films have been part of ACFF almost since it began 13 years ago. If we want good films in the future, then we need to nurture the next generation of filmmakers now. Not an easy task. A good conservation film can educate, inform and inspire, as we at ACFF like to say, and so the karmic benefits are great. But the pay is lousy. Like most artists, filmmakers create their works because it’s their passion, not because it’s lucrative. As in other artistic fields, filmmakers often end up leaving their passion for other work that actually pays the bills.
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So each year, to support particularly promising young filmmakers, ACFF presents a $500 award for the best student film of the festival—an award generously funded by the Friends of the National Conservation Training Center. But often we struggle to cover that student’s travel expenses to attend the festival and receive the award. This year, in memory of ACFF Board Member Alex Kemnitzer, we’re adding a new component to our student support. The Alex Kemnitzer Emerging Filmmaker Fund (sidebar, page 47) will allow ACFF to bring more student filmmakers to the festival each year and cover their tuition to our Conservation Filmmakers Workshops. Those workshops allow students to learn new skills while networking with professional filmmakers. ACFF’s selectors are a little more forgiving on student submissions, accepting some films that otherwise wouldn’t make the cut. But student submissions also reveal stark contrasts in talent, and almost every year at least one student film stands out. Those standout films aren’t just top student films, they’re top films for the entire festival. This year’s student award winner, White Earth, is one of those: It already has won 12 awards at film festivals around the
world, including festivals in Anchorage, Alaska, New Orleans, Louisiana, Bogotá, Columbia, and Seoul, South Korea. In it, filmmaker J. Christian Jensen captures the harshness of a white winter in the town of White Earth, North Dakota, a community transformed by the oil and gas fracking boom sweeping the state, where entire families crowd into RVs because rents have skyrocketed and housing is scarce. Where fathers attach plywood rooms to stationary trailers to create more space, and return home at the end of their shifts smelling like diesel. Parents see the boom as an opportunity to make money until the fields bust. Their kids often see it differently. Jensen tells the story of White Earth through the eyes and voices of the children, providing a unique perspective on u
Oil drilling near White Earth, North Dakota, has transformed the landscape. White Earth Poster Design: Randy Bangerter Photo courtesy of J. Christian Jensen
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an American phenomenon whose effects are rippling through the global energy market. But sometimes it’s hard to pick just one winner. Eddie Roqueta’s beautifully filmed Silencing the Thunder opens with a head-on shot of a helicopter chasing a bewildered bison down the road near Yellowstone National Park. In his film, Roqueta explores the ongoing controversy between ranchers—who fear disease from wandering bison—and preservationists, who want to restore America’s iconic herds. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named Roqueta as a 2015 Student Academy Awards finalist for documentary film. Although Silencing the Thunder didn’t win our top student prize, Roqueta will be traveling from Santa Barbara to introduce his film, answer questions and attend our Filmmakers Workshop thanks to the Alex Kemnitzer Emerging Filmmaker Fund. And those DVD’s that I couldn’t bear to toss a few weeks ago? The first was The Last Iceman of Chimborazo,
by Gabriela Lozada Pazo, the ACFF student award winner in 2012. It follows 68-year-old Baltazar Ushka as he climbs the Chimborazo glacier of Ecuador with his donkeys and pick ax to bring blocks of ancient ice down to urbanites anxious to mix a bit of the Earth in their drinks. Pazo shows how the restauranteurs seek Ushka out, how his son marvels at his stamina and how the source of his strength—the melting glacier— is disappearing almost as rapidly as his contemporaries. The second was the 2011 film Charcoal Burners, by Piotr Ziotorowicz, a student at the Polish National Film School. In it, Ziotorowicz visually documents the daily life of an aging couple in Poland’s Bieszczady Mountains who make their living turning forest logs into charcoal in crude furnaces. It quietly juxtaposes the drudgery of a hardscrabble life on the land with the search for beauty in its midst: a bouquet of wildflowers, a kaleidoscope of butterflies, a beloved pet. This film wasn’t an award winner—I discovered
Film poster and photograph courtesy of Eddie Roqueta.
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to my dismay that my fellow reviewers either loved its hidden narrative as I did, or, conversely, found its laconic couple tedious. And so we bestowed the award on a film we all admired—Laurie Sumiye Filiak’s poignant Struggle for Existence about Hawai’i’s most endangered birds. Which goes to show that it’s hard to pick just one. I’m glad to know that in memory of our friend and dedicated board member Alex Kemnitzer, ACFF can now nurture the promise in the Charcoal Burners of the world as well. u
White Earth shows at Shepherd University’s Reynolds Hall, Saturday, October 24, in a block of films starting at 7 pm, and at the Shepherdstown Opera House on Sunday, November 1 at 4:30 pm. Silencing the Thunder shows at the Shepherdstown Opera House on Friday, October 23 in a block of films starting at 7 pm focusing on western wildlife and public lands.
Alex Kemnitzer Emerging Filmmaker Fund In February of this year, ACFF and the Shepherdstown community lost dear friend and ACFF board member Alex Kemnitzer, when he died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Alex was 32 years old. He served on ACFF’s board for many years and was always a dedicated, enthusiastic and supportive ambassador for ACFF. We miss him and his many contributions greatly. Many people made donations to ACFF in Alex’s memory. To honor our friend, and with a founding gift from Alex’s parents, Sue and David Kemnitzer, we have established the Alex Kemnitzer Emerging Filmmaker Fund. One of the primary tenets of ACFF is to encourage aspiring filmmakers to explore the craft of documentary filmmaking, give them a platform to show their work, and provide learning and networking opportunities to further their education and involvement. This Fund will help us better achieve this mission by supporting student filmmakers to attend the festival and the Filmmaker Workshops each year. ACFF hopes to build this fund for years to come to grow new conservation filmmakers while honoring Alex. Donations to the fund can be made by contacting Jennifer Lee at jennifer@conservationfilm.org. Or, send your donation to ACFF, P.O. Box 889, Shepherdstown, WV 25443 or donate online at the Festival website, www.conservationfilm.org, and indicate that it’s for the Alex Kemnitzer Emerging Filmmaker Award.
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2015 ACFF SCHEDULE THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22 Special Event at NCTC Byrd Auditorium 7:00 All Over the Map: I Dream of Seney (30) Q&A with Peter Schriemer, filmmaker—All Over the Map: I Dream of Seney 7:40 The Power of One Voice: A 50 Year Perspective on the Life of Rachel Carson (52) Post-show discussion with Mark Dixon, filmmaker—The Power of One Voice
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23 BLOCK 1: Wild, Wonderful, Endangered WV at the Byrd Center for Legislative Studies 6:30 Blood on the Mountain (88) ➢ 7:50 Elk River Blues (57) ➢ 8:50 Poisoned WV Water Crisis (2) BLOCK 2: Broncos and Bison: Threats to Western Wildlife at the Shepherdstown Opera House 7:00 A Line in the Sand (3) ➢ 7:05 Unbranded (105) ➢ 8:52 Silencing the Thunder (27) Special Event: Get Shaken and Stirred with ACFF at Tito’s Night! Special cocktail offerings, free nibbles, late night dinner menu, and mingling with friends and filmmakers. 9:30–Midnight, Domestic Restaurant, 117 East German Street
SATURDAy, OCTOBER 24 BLOCK 3: Diversity and Destruction: Islands and Icebergs at the NCTC Byrd Auditorium 12:30 Islands of Creation (46) ➢ 1:20 Chasing Ice (76)
BLOCK 4: Charismatic Critters for Curious Kids—and Their Parents! at the NCTC Family Theater 12:30 Flamingo Factory (7) ➢ 12:40 Electric Amazon (46) ➢ 1:30 FINconceivable (4) ➢ 1:35 Siyaya—Come Wild with Us: Searching for White Eye (26) BLOCK 5: Bats, Tigers, Vultures and the Ring of Fire at the Shepherdstown Opera House 1:00 Natural World: The Bat Man of Mexico (64) ➢ 2:08 Zapovednik - When Men & Tigers Meet in the East (17) ➢ 2:27 Vultures of Tibet (21) ➢ 2:50 Life on Wallace’s Line (20) BLOCK 6: Discovering Ocean Mysteries and Your Passion in Nature: Films for older kids and adults at the NCTC Family Theater 2:30 Legends of the Deep: The Giant Squid (52) ➢ 3:25 Dare to be Wild* (102) *some mildly mature content BLOCK 7: Africa, India, Washington and WV: Impacts of Intervention at the NCTC Byrd Auditorium 3:15 Last Days (3) ➢ 3:20 Pathways to Coexistence (18) ➢ 3:40 Snowy Owl Goes to Washington (15) ➢ 3:57 Broken Landscape (13) ➢ 4:15 Overburden (66) BLOCK 8: Extreme Nature: Outdoor Adventures in Wild Places at the Shepherdstown Opera House 4:15 CO2LD WATERS (11) ➢ 4:30 The Little Things (47) ➢ 5:20 North of the Sun (46) ➢ 6:09 Nature Rx: Prescription Strength (3)
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continued SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24 BLOCK 9: Eating the Planet at the Shepherdstown Opera House 7:00 Add One Back (17) ➢ 7:20 No Jile (10) ➢ 7:35 Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (91) BLOCK 10: Con Men and Conservation at Reynolds Hall 7:00 Black Gold (5) ➢ 7:07 White Earth (20) ➢ 7:30 Merchants of Doubt (94) ➢ 9:05 Nature Rx: Prescription Strength (3) Special Event: Saturday Night Wrap Party Celebrate the festival with us with free hors d’oeuvres and cash bar. 9:30–Midnight, Blue Moon Café 200, East High Street
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25: BLOCK 11: ISO Sustainable Food at the Shepherdstown Opera House 12:00 Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective (92) ➢ 1:40 GMO OMG (84) BLOCK 12: Better Living in the Urban Jungle at the Byrd Center for Legislative Studies 2:00 Gateway (5) ➢ 2:07 City of Trees (74) ➢ 3:35 Bike vs. Cars (88) BLOCK 13: New Perspectives on Vanishing Wildlife at the Shepherdstown Opera House 3:45 XBoundary (6) ➢ 3:53 Last Dragons: Protecting Appalachia’s Hellbenders (10) ➢ 4:05 Osprey: Marine Sentinel (15) ➢ 4:22 European Lake Trout (12) ➢ 4:35 Secrets of the Hive (46)
BLOCK 14: Waste Not, Want Not at the Byrd Center for Legislative Studies 5:30 Racing to Zero: In Pursuit of Zero Waste (57) ➢ 6:40 Just Eat It: A Food Waste Movie (74) BLOCK 15: Urgent Calls to Action at the Shepherdstown Opera House 6:15 Tiger Tiger (90) ➢ 8:05 Revolution (85)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1 BLOCK 16: Award Winners Encore at the Shepherdstown Opera House 4:30 White Earth (20)—Student Award ➢ 4:50 Islands of Creation (46)—Broadcast Award ➢ 5:40 Merchants of Doubt (94)—Green Fire Award ➢ 7:20 Audience Choice Winner—to be determined
Byrd Center for Legislative Studies 213 North King Street (on Shepherd University Campus) Shepherdstown Opera House 131 West German Street Reynolds Hall 109 North King Street (on Shepherd University Campus) NCTC—National Conservation Training Center 698 Conservation Way Film times and venues are subject to change, so please check the ACFF website for the latest start times and locations. Film descriptions and advance tickets will be available online at conservationfilm.org. Screenings at NCTC and on November 1 are “pay-as-youcan.” Please register online to reserve your seat. NCTC requires government-issued IDs for all guests 16+
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