2011 princeton environmental film festival schedule

Schedule of Events Princeton Public Library

Fabien Cousteau

January 13-23

Chelsea Sexton

“Carbon Nation”

“Jane’s Journey”

“This Way of Life”

SU PPORT

The Princeton Environmental Film Festival is organized by library staff with the help of a community planning committee: Tom Adelman, Clancy August, Susan Conlon, Liz Cutler, Jaime Ewalt, Chad Fath, Adam Freidin, Janice Hall, Janie Hermann, Steve Hiltner, Alex Kasdin, Lindsey Kayman, Rees Keck, Diane Landis, Kai Marshall-Otto, Dorothy Mullen, Karen K. Nathan, Margaret O’Gorman, Paula Pagniez, Martha Perry Liu, Elyse Pivnick, Athena Sarafides, Natasha Shatzkin and Matt Spewak.

The festival is made possible through funding provided by Church & Dwight Co., Inc., Bert Kerstetter, The American Jewish Committee of Central New Jersey and The Waldorf School of Princeton.

Thanks to the following for their support: American Jewish Committee of Central New Jersey bent spoon ice cream Boys and Girls Club Bike Exchange Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey The D&R Greenway Land Trust Farmer Steve’s Popcorn greendesign - an eco-goods store Hometown Princeton Isles John Witherspoon Middle School Environmental Club Labyrinth Books

Nassau Inn OASIS (Organizing Action on Sustainability In Schools) Olives Olivine Princeton Black Squirrel Princeton Day School EnAct Club Princeton Environmental Commission Princeton Environmental Institute Princeton Farmers’ Market Princeton High School Environmental Club Princeton Living Well Princeton Record Exchange

Princeton Regional Schools Princeton Tour Company Princeton University Office of Sustainability Sierra Club, Central New Jersey Group Small World Coffee Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association Suppers Program Sustainable Princeton TerraCycle Terra Momo Restaurant Group The Waldorf School of Princeton Whole Earth Center of Princeton

Festival Contact: Susan Conlon / 609.924.9529, ext. 247 / sconlon@princetonlibrary.org

Buy a mug and help the festival Princeton Black Squirrel has collaborted with the library on the Princeton Environmental Film Festival mug. When you purchase a commemorative mug for $10, proceeds will benefit the festival.

Princeton Public Library Sands Library Building / 65 Witherspoon Street Princeton, NJ, 08542 609.924.9529 / www.princetonlibrary.org Schedule of Events printed on 100 percent recycled paper

S

ponsored by Princeton Public Library, the Princeton Environmental Film Festival uses film as a medium to encourage discussion about the environment, raise awareness about environmental concerns and stimulate community action to develop and make more sustainable choices and create more livable communities.

The festival, which is planned by library staff and community members, includes screenings of documentary films and related programs featuring filmmakers, community activists, entrepreneurs, scientists and others working on a broad range of environmental issues.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 13

Noon “And This is My Garden”

4:30 p.m.

“Living Downstream”

Based on the acclaimed book by ecologist and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber, this film follows her during one pivotal year as she travels across North America, working to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links. Filmmaker Chanda Chevannes reveals how invisible toxins migrate to some of the most beautiful places in North America. The film shows how these chemicals enter our bodies and how, once inside, scientists believe they may cause cancer. The film, her personal journey and her scientific exploration, is a powerful reminder of the intimate connection between the health of our bodies and the health of our air, land and water.

85 minutes A post-screening discussion will be led by Mike Schade, PVC campaign coordinator for the Center for Health Environment and Justice.

7 p.m.

Chelsea Sexton

Sexton’s work on the General Motors EV1 electric vehicle program, and passion for it, were featured in the 2006 film “Who Killed the Electric Car.” Sexton will present a brief preview the upcoming “Revenge of the Electric Car,” for which she is a consulting producer. (“Revenge” is scheduled for spring release.) Sexton continues to drive the implementation of clean transportation and energy, creating the Automotive X Prize in 2005, and the advocacy group Plug In America.

This program is co-sponsored by the library and the American Jewish Committee of Central New Jersey.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 14 10 a.m.

Sustainable Princeton

Do you want to bike safely to work, install solar panels on your home or business or reduce pesticides on your lawn? Join this discussion to identify the aspects of sustainable living that are important to you and contribute to building a community roadmap to help Sustainable Princeton develop new initiatives to meet its goals for 2011.

All Princeton Environmental Film Festival events are free and open to the public

Living in a small town in northern Manitoba, students are empowered with the knowledge, discipline and skill to grow their own food in backyard gardens. The film, produced by Katharina Stieffenhofer, follows a teacher and her students for a season of planting, harvesting, preserving, through to the annual harvest display and community feast. Along the way, the students develop a sense of responsibility, pride and accomplishment and address issues of community food security, chronic disease prevention and environmental improvement. 58 minutes The screening will be followed by discussion featuring school garden advocate Dorothy Mullen and other panelists who will share their experiences starting and sustaining school gardens.

2 p.m.

Student Environmental Communication Network Communicating Sustainability

Directed by Shana Weber and the Office of Sustainability at Princeton University, the Student Environmental Communication Network (SECN) is a training program for students in audio and video production around the topic of sustainability. Podcasts and video works produced since 2007 are the result of SECN internships, academic course-work, and a summer training program. SECN’s objective is to develop a model for student training that can be shared among institutions of higher education to document and distribute student explorations of environmental and sustainability topics important to them. Short films from the SECN program will be screened at this session. Weber will speak.

4 p.m.

Heidi Cullen The Weather of the Future

In her new book “The Weather of the Future,” Heidi Cullen, one of the world’s foremost climatologists and environmental journalists, puts a vivid face on climate change, offering a new way of seeing this phenomenon not just as an event set to happen in the distant future but as something happening right now in our own backyards. Her book combines the latest research from scientists on the ground with state-of-the-art climate-model projections to create climate-change scenarios for seven of the most at-risk locations around the world. Dr. Cullen, who reports on climate change for several news outlets, will discuss her latest book and research, and a book-signing will be held following the program.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 14

SATURDAY, JANUARY 15 4 p.m.

Dr. Michael Greger Pandemic Prevention: Swine Flu and Other Emerging Infectious Diseases (Multimedia presentation)

Influenza pandemics, triggered by bird or swine flu viruses, have the potential to kill millions of people. The influenza virus has existed for millions of years as an innocuous intestinal virus of wild ducks. What turned a harmless waterborne duck virus into a killer? In an engaging multimedia presentation, Dr. Michael Greger, director of public health and animal agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States, traces the human role in the evolution of this virus and suggests what society can do to reduce the likelihood of such potential catastrophes in the future. Greger is an internationally recognized lecturer who has presented at the Conference on World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and the International Bird Flu Summit. He testified before Congress and was an expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous “meat defamation” trial.

7 p.m.

An Evening with Fabien Cousteau

An oceanographer and environmentalist, Fabien is the son of JeanMichel Cousteau and grandson of oceanographic explorer Jacques Cousteau. Diving since age 4, Fabien was developed an unwavering appreciation for the wonder, beauty and importance of our aquatic ecosystems to sustaining life on the planet. He will share footage of his ocean exploration and speak about some of his latest efforts to save our oceans, including Plant A Fish, which uses the positive action of “replanting” undersea flora and fauna in environmentally stressed areas.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 15 10 a.m.

Philly Zoo on Wheels

The Philadelphia Zoo rolls into town with this special outreach program. Zoo staff will provide a lively presentation on conservation, endangered species, and environmental sustainability, and they will bring along bio-facts and a few live animal friends from the zoo.

Noon “A Simple Question: The Story of STRAW”

This family-friendly film by filmmakers David Donnenfield and Kevin While chronicles students’ efforts to save an endangered species, the California freshwater shrimp. What began in a fourth grade classroom has morphed into a regional science-learning program combining habitat restoration work and community service. Partnering with ranchers, scientists, and government agencies, the project has led to the restoration of 21 miles of riparian habitat for the freshwater shrimp. In the process, it connected kids with nature, and classrooms with community. 30 minutes

2 p.m.

“Play Again”

Children play more behind screens than outside. What are they missing? And what impact will this have on our children, our society, and eventually, our planet? This moving and humorous documentary by filmmakers Tonje Hessen Schei and Meg Merri, pictured at left, follows six teenagers who, like the “average American child,” spend five to 15 hours a day behind screens.

“Play Again” unplugs these teens and takes them on their first wilderness adventure – no electricity, no cell phone coverage, no virtual reality. 80 minutes The film will be followed by a panel discussion. Co-sponsored by the library and the Waldorf School of Princeton.

7 p.m.

“Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home” This film explores the awakening conscience of several people who grew up in traditional farming culture and came to question the basic assumptions of their inherited way of life. With strikingly honest interviews and rare footage demonstrating the emotional lives and intense family bonds of animals most often viewed as living commodities, the film shatters stereotypical notions of farmers, farm life, and perhaps most surprisingly, farm animals themselves. 95 minutes.

Filmmakers Jenny Stein and James LaVeck and film subject Harold Brown will lead a post-screening discussion.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 11 a.m.

“Better Bones and Gardens”

This film by Natalie Elder and Lindsey Clark explores the quirky projects of Dan Phillips, a trash architect and Kipp Nash, an urban farmer. These men are remaking the common house and garden in wildly imaginative ways. Discarded cattle bones, wine corks, DVDs, and bottle caps are used as building materials for homes, while manicured grass lawns are transformed into lush, nutritious gardens. While these projects may sound a little strange, Nash and Phillips show that by following their passion for building and gardening, they can help people save money and keep our planet a little cleaner. 25 minutes

11:30 a.m.

“Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio”

In 1993, the late architect and MacArthur Genius Grant winner Samuel Mockbee started the Rural Studio, a design/build education program, in which students create striking architecture for impoverished communities in rural Alabama. The film, directed by Sam Wainwright Douglas, follows a group of students as they craft a home for Jimmie Lee Matthews, known to locals as Music Man because of his zeal for old R&B records. Through interviews with Mockbee’s peers, the documentary reveals that the Rural Studio is about more than architecture and building, fostering a larger discussion of architecture’s role in issues of poverty, class, race, education, social change and citizenship. 60 minutes The screening will be followed by a talk by Princeton architect David Cohen.

For more information about all Princeton Environmental Film Festival events, visit www.princetonlibrary.org/peff

SUNDAY, JANUARY 16

TUESDAY, JANUARY 18

1:30 p.m.

“I Bought a Rainforest”

Like many children attending school in the 1980s, Jacob Andrén helped raise funds in his native Sweden to save rainforests. Twenty years later, he wonders what happened to all those trees that he and his classmates bought with the money they made by selling things at flea markets. He decides to travel to the Central American rainforest to try to find his trees and see if their efforts made a difference. The film, directed by Andrén and Helena Nygren, shows that individual action can make a difference, while at the same time reflects on the freedom of childhood and about using that inspiration to make a change. 68 minutes

4 p.m.

“Jane’s Journey”

More than two decades ago, Jane Goodall gave up her career as a primatologist and her private life to devote her energies to saving our endangered planet. Now 75, she has been spending 300 days a year scouring the globe on her mission to spread hope for future generations. In this film by Lorenz Knauer, viewers accompany her on her travels across several continents, with unprecedented access to her past. 107 minutes

6 p.m.

Van Jones: Solutions for a Clean Energy Economy

As the founder of Green For All, the national organization working to get green jobs to disadvantaged communities, Jones was the main advocate for the Green Jobs Act, which George W. Bush signed into law in 2007. The act was the first piece of federal legislation to codify the term “green jobs.” Under the Obama administration, it has resulted in $500 million for green job training nationally. At Princeton University, Jones holds a joint appointment: he is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Author of “The GreenCollar Economy,” he is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior policy adviser at Green For All.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 18 Noon “The Farmer and the Horse”

In New Jersey, land of “The Sopranos,” “Jersey Shore,” and the Turnpike, farmland is more expensive than almost anywhere else. It’s not an easy place to try to start a career as a farmer. But for a new generation of farmers inspired by sustainability, everything seems possible, even a farm powered by draft horses. Filmmaker Jared Flesher follows three farmers out of the suburbs and back to the land. 76 minutes.

Filmmaker Jared Flesher and Tom Paduano, one of the young farmers featured in the film, will lead a post-screening discussion.

2 p.m.

“A Tree Grows in Trenton”

This short documentary is about a New Jersey tree-planting program, the Cool Cities Initiative. Planting trees is a low-cost, low-tech way to fight many environmental problems facing our cities today. The film explains how planting trees in urban centers can reduce energy costs between 20 and 50 percent, as well as reduce air pollution and urban development. At the same time, it serves to raise real estate prices, beautify neighborhoods, and make people feel good about where they live. Trenton serves as an example for how successful this program has been and how the trees have affected the city and its residents in very positive ways. 30 minutes Director Jenny Chiurco will lead a post-screening discussion.

4 p.m.

“A Murder of Crows”

This PBS “Nature” program, directed by Susan Fleming, is about new research on crows, who live everywhere in the world except Antarctica and are a part of myths and legends in many cultures. With a reputation that varies from comical to frightening — a “murder” of crows refers to a flock of crows, and not to anything murderous — they are thought to be godlike, wise, bringers of light and bringers of death. However, what we are learning is that they are among the most intelligent animals on the planet. They recognize human faces and can adapt to a constantly changing world. They are fascinating, social birds who mate for life and raise their young up to five years. 60 minutes.

6 p.m.

“Migratory Birds and Shade Grown Coffee”

Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee a day. This short film by Marshal T. Casse, Elisabeth N. Radow and Samuel Orr explores the relationship between migratory bird species and the benefits to its species protection and the positive impact on its habitat and the environment by growing coffee in the shade. 12 minutes

6:30 p.m.

“The Commoners”

In 1890, one man attempted to release every bird ever mentioned by William Shakespeare into Central Park. The only bird to survive in the New World was the European Starling, now among the most common – and most despised – birds in America. Directed by Jessica Bardsley, “The Commoners” is an essay film about European Starlings, poetry, the rhetorical relationship between nationalism and environmentalism and the paths people forge through history as they attempt to improve the natural world. 17 minutes

7 p.m.

“The Olmsted Legacy”

This film, directed by Rebecca Messner, examines the formation of America’s first great city parks in the late 19th century through the enigmatic eyes of Frederick Law Olmsted, visionary urban planner and landscape architect. A century and a half after Olmsted designed New York City’s Central Park with Calvert Vaux, it remains an undisputed haven of tranquility amid one of the largest, tallest, and most unnatural places on earth. With incredible foresight that spanned centuries, Olmsted brought nourishing green spaces to New York, Boston, Chicago, Trenton, San Francisco, Atlanta, Louisville, and dozens of other US cities. Olmsted wanted these parks to be vital democratic spaces in cities, where citizens from all walks of life could intermingle and be refreshed. 60 minutes The film will be followed by a talk by executive producer Mike Messner, co-founder with his wife, Jenny, of The Speedwell Foundation, sponsor of “The Olmsted Legacy.”

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19 2 p.m.

“Geospatial Revolution”

The first two episodes of this Penn State Public Broadcasting series, directed by Stephen Stept and produced and co-directed by Stephanie Ayanian and Cheraine Stanford, will be screened. Geospatial information influences nearly everything. Seamless layers of satellites, surveillance, and locationbased technologies create a worldwide geographic knowledge base vital to solving myriad social and environmental problems in the interconnected global community. The Geospatial Revolution Project is an integrated public service media and outreach initiative about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact. “The location of anything is becoming everything.”

4 p.m.

“A Road Not Taken”

In 1979, Jimmy Carter’s administration installed solar panels on the roof of the White House. This symbolic installation was taken down in 1986 during the Reagan presidency. In 1991, Unity College, an environmentally minded center of learning in Maine acquired the panels and later installed them on their cafeteria roof. In this documentary essay, Swiss artists Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller travel back in time, following the route the solar panels took, and look closely at the way this initial installation presaged our own era. 66 minutes

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19

THURSDAY, JANUARY 20 7 p.m.

“Houston We Have a Problem”

7 p.m.

“Carbon Nation”

This compelling and relevant film, directed by Peter Byck, illustrates how solutions to climate change also address other social, economic and national security issues. “Carbon Nation” is an optimistic discovery of what people are already doing, and explores what as a nation we could be doing and what the world needs to do to prevent (or slow down) the impending climate crisis. Visionaries, scientists, businesspeople and regular folk appear in this film, which examines the fact that we already have the technology to combat most of the worst-case scenarios of climate change, and it is very good business as well. 86 minutes The film will be followed by a talk by Robert Socolow, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University and codirector of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 20 Noon Sustaining Books In Personal and Public Libraies

In this demonstration and talk, Princeton Public Library volunteer Bill Strong discusses how to preserve and extend the life of books, helping to keep them out of landfills and in our valued personal and public library collections. Bill got his training in a book-repair program at Johns Hopkins University through a National Endowment of the Humanities program.

Applying his skills learned over a two-decade period, he has repaired and restored hundreds of books since he started working as a library volunteer in 2003. In this program Strong will demonstrate the repair and care of books, showing several examples of repairs, what kinds of tools he uses, and how to teach children how to handle a book with care.

1 p.m.

A WWOOFer’s Journey

Mary Clurman is a retired 69-year-old idealist who lives in Princeton. She paints, writes and was inspired by a film and talk at the 2009 Princeton Environmental Film Festival to try WWOOFing (Worldwide Opportunities in Organic Farming and Willing Workers on Organic Farms). Between April and November of last year, she WWOOFed her way through Ireland, France, Belgium and the Scottish Highlands, milking cows and goats, weeding and meeting fellow WWOOFers from around the world. She will share her journey in stories and pictures.

2 p.m.

Earth Quaker Action Team: Bank Like Appalachia Matters!

Ingrid Lake and Zachary Hershman of Philadelphia and Ann Yashuhara and Laura Hawkins of Princeton will speak about their work with this group, which draws its inspiration from the history of Quaker actions to bring about change in society. In this talk, which includes slides and video, some of those who organized the group and led it for the past year will describe how they narrowed in on a skillful campaign against mountaintop removal coal mining, a campaign that just had its first major victory in only seven months.

4 p.m.

“Burning in the Sun”

Daniel Dembele, 26-year-old charmer, is equal parts West African and European, and he is looking to make his mark on the world. Seizing the moment at a crossroads in his life, Daniel decides to return to his homeland in Mali and start a local business building solar panels, the first of its kind in the sun-drenched nation. Daniel’s goal is to electrify the households of rural communities, 99 percent of which live without power. The film tells the story of Daniel’s journey growing the budding idea into a viable company and of the business’ impact on his first customers in a tiny village. Taking controversial stances on climate change, poverty and African self-sufficiency, the film, directed by Cambria Matlow and Morgan Robinson, explores what it means to grow as a man and what it takes to prosper as a nation. 81 minutes

Step inside the energy capital of the world to hear the truth about oil, straight from the Texas oilmen themselves. See decades of American presidents who have warned against dependence on foreign oil, and how the U.S. Energy Policy has always been a strategy of offense, not defense. The world’s energy demand is skyrocketing and aggressive strategies for securing crude now go to the highest bidder. Even the oilmen who work in the trenches know that being addicted to cheap oil will be the nation’s downfall. This film by Nicole Torre makes it clear that we must embrace all forms of alternative energy. 85 minutes

FRIDAY, JANUARY 21

Noon “Laid to Waste: A Chester Neighborhood Fights for its Future”

In the economically depressed, largely African-American “West End” of Chester, PA, Zulene Mayfield lives next door to one of the largest trashto-steam incinerators in the nation and a few doors away from a large processing facility for infectious and hazardous medical waste. The county’s sewage treatment plant is adjacent to her neighbors’ homes a block away, while additional waste-processing facilities have been proposed for the community. 60 minutes.

The film will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker George McCollough.

2 p.m.

“The Sky is Burning”

This film, directed by Luciano Capelli, chronicles the ongoing efforts to protect the tropical dry forests and ecosystem of Costa Rica, focusing on the plight of the Guanacaste tropical dry forest, documenting the struggle to preserve over three hundred thousand species of life through reforestation efforts carried out at the Santa Rosa National Park. 57 minutes

4 p.m.

“Dive: Living Off of America’s Waste”

Every year Americans throw away 96 billion pounds of food.

That’s 263 million pounds a day, 11 million pounds an hour, 3,000 pounds a second. Inspired by a curiosity about our country’s careless habit of sending food straight to landfills, this awardwinning documentary follows filmmaker Jeremy Seifert, pictured above, and friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of Los Angeles’ supermarkets. In the process, they salvage thousands of dollars worth of good, edible food, resulting in an eye-opening documentary that is equal parts entertainment, guerilla journalism and call to action. 55 minutes Jarrett Kerbel, executive director of the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton, will speak at a post-screening discussion.

7 p.m.

“Bag It”

Americans use 60,000 plastic bags every five minutes, bags they throw away without much thought. But where is “away?” Where do the bags and other plastics end up, and at what cost to the environment, marine life and human health? This film, directed by Suzan Beraza, follows everyman Jeb Berrier as he navigates our plastic world. Jeb is not a radical environmentalist, but an average American who decides to take a closer look at our cultural love affair with plastics. Jeb’s journey starts with simple questions: Are plastic bags really necessary? What are plastic bags made from?

What happens to plastic bags after they are discarded? What he learns quickly grows far beyond plastic bags. What he discovers is shocking. 79 minutes Sharon Rowe, CEO and founder of ECOBAGS.com, will lead a postscreening discussion.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 22

SATURDAY, JANUARY 22

10 a.m.

“Where the Whales Sing”

Three years ago, Bermuda-based producer-director Andrew Stevenson embarked on what seemed like a challenging project, to film the North Atlantic humpback whales underwater in the middle of their mid-ocean migratory crossings. The humpback whales have since become an overriding passion. Come share his journey, told through the eyes of his 6-year-old daughter, Elsa. 61 minutes

Noon “Students Saving the Ocean”

This film, directed by David Schwartz, highlights actions that students can take on a daily basis to improve the health of the oceans. Developed in collaboration with dozens of Bay Area California high schools, aquariums and organizations, the film is based on the book “Fifty Ways to Save the Oceans” by David Helvarg and cartoonist Jim Toomey of the nationally syndicated “Sherman’s Lagoon.” 23 minutes.

The film will be followed by an interactive talk, featuring slides and videos, led by Nicole Argyropoulos, an environmental education specialist who has worked for think tanks and non-profit organizations such as the Rocky Mountain Institute, the Clinton Climate Initiative and JeanMichel’s Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society, and Janice Hall, president of Natural Network International. Both speakers are on the executive committee of educational advisory group Blue Ocean Sciences.

1:30 p.m.

Focus on Sharks with Stan Waterman

Waterman returns to the Princeton Environmental Film Festival to talk about broad environmental efforts of Shark Savers to reduce the rapid depletion of sharks by commercial overfishing. He will share some short films about shark encounters in the Bahamas with three different feeding activities plus exploration of the biggest underwater cave system in the islands. A pioneer underwater film producer and photographer, the Emmy-award winning Waterman has been at the forefront of scuba diving since its inception. In addition to his film and television work, he speaks to dive groups throughout the world and hosts dive tours to exotic destinations.

7 p.m.

“Gasland”

The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a “Saudi Arabia of natural gas” just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. The film is part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, and part showdown.

107 minutes Director Josh Fox will lead a post-screening discussion.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 23 11 a.m.

“Soundtracker”

There are very few places of quiet left in the United States. For the past 30 years, Emmy Award-winning nature-sound recordist Gordon Hempton has made it his life’s mission to find and record these places before they are gone. The film, directed by Nicholas Sherman, follows him as he travels throughout America’s West in search of these quiet places.

Shot throughout the Pacific Northwest and sound-mixed to incorporate Hempton’s own pristine binaural recordings, “Soundtracker” explores the sounds and the soul of an uncompromising artist. 82 minutes

3 p.m.

“Oceans”

Disneynature, the studio that presented the record-breaking film “Earth,” chronicles the mysteries that lie beneath our oceans, which cover nearly three-quarters of the Earth’s surface. Diving deep, this film features spectacular, neverbefore-seen imagery captured by the latest underwater technologies. Directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzzaud, “Oceans” offers an unprecedented look beneath the sea. 124 minutes.

5 p.m.

Short Films Program

This hour is dedicated to some of the short films submitted to the festival, including “A Mongolian Couch,” directed by George Clipp and Eva Arnold; “Skylight,” directed by Dave Baas; “What If?,” directed by Cameron Tingley; and “Earth, Our Home,” directed by Robert Colon.

6 p.m.

“Garbage Moguls”

An episode of this documentary series from the National Geographic Channel offers an unadulterated, inside look at TerraCycle, the Trentonbased company that literally turns trash into treasure right here in New Jersey. Led by CEO Tom Szaky, The TerraCycle team uses an unorthodox, creative process to build a profitable business with products composed entirely of trash. Once named the “The Coolest Little Start-Up in America” by Inc. magazine, TerraCycle is redefining green business, focusing each day on the next million-dollar idea, even if that means spending hours scrounging through stinky garbage. 30 minutes.

1:30 p.m.

“Waste Land”

Filmed over nearly three years, Lucy Walker’s film follows renowned artist Vik Muniz, pictured at left, as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores,”self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives. 98 minutes TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky will lead a post-screening discussion.

4:30 p.m.

“This Way of Life”

Set against the imposing mountains and isolated beaches in a remote part of North Island, New Zealand, this film is an intimate portrait of a Maori couple and their six children, their relationship with each other, nature and horses. The film, directed by Tom Burstyn and produced by Barbara Sumner Burstyn, is a blueprint for how to live with little. It is a modern parable of one family’s unconventional and incredibly positive response to the questions that confront many families in these anxious times. 85 minutes