Good for all events, Sat. Feb. 4-Sun. Feb. 5

THE LORAX (animated from a story by Dr. Seuss, 1972, 30 min.) The Lorax is the loveable caretaker of trees everywhere, always trying to minimize the damage done by the greedy Onceler, who sees trees solely as a source of personal profit. A poignant tale for young and old that resonates like the sound of a rusting chainsaw.

IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT (Dir: Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman, 2011, 90 min.) In 2005, a sweep by the FBI busted the outlawed, underground Earth Liberation Front—labeled America’s #1 domestic terror threat for its firebombings of Northwestern paper mills and the monkey-wrenching of logging equipment. The group’s rise and fall is related via the radicalization of Daniel McGowan, who went from environmental activist to facing a future of life imprisonment. Interviews with various members and actual news footage round out the ELF story—a story of young people whose idealistic passions knew no earthly bounds. Outside Magazine called it a “most urgent documentary” while Variety said it “has to be seen to be believed.”

THE RIVER (Dir: Pare Lorentz, 1937, 30 min.) Lorentz was hand-picked by President FDR to head the short-lived United States Film Service, and one of the best works to emerge was The River—arguably one of the first environmental films ever made. Chronicling the decades of soil and forest mismanagement along the Mississippi River basin, its bitter consequence, and what the government was doing about it, Lorentz created a rhetorical tour-de-force of visual montage, lyrical voice-over by Thomas Chalmers, and a memorable score by Virgil Thompson. A classic of Americana, it belongs on the same shelf as Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land. THE BUFFALO CREEK FLOOD: AN ACT OF MAN (Dir: Mimi Pickering, 1975, 40 min.) BUFFALO CREEK REVISITED (Dir: Pickering, 1985, 31 min.) with director Mimi Pickering of Appalshop! On February 26, 1972, a coal-waste dam owned by the Pittston Company collapsed at the head of a hollow in West Virginia, unleashing a wall of sludge that left 4,000 homeless and 125 dead. In its aftermath, filmmaker Pickering and crew interviewed survivors, company officials, and investigators. Despite emerging evidence, Pittston denied any wrongdoing, calling the event an “act of God.” Ten years later, Pickering revisited the site and found the reconstructive effort stalled due to a centuries-old pattern of corporate control over the region's resources. The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry in 2005, Newsweek called it a “devastating expose,” and Film Quarterly cited its “balance between emotion and analysis.” A Q&A with filmmaker Mimi Pickering of Appalshop will accompany the screenings. Appalshop began in 1969 as an experiment in community-based filmmaking on environmental and cultural issues and is located in Whitehead, Kentucky.

A/V GEEKS presents THE LAST TIME WE WERE GREEN (90 min.), an entertaining collection of 16mm ecology films from the 1960s and 1970s that address the problems of pollution and raise the question, “Why did we ever stop being green?” Films include: Pitch In, Uncle Smiley Goes Down the River, Land Betrayed, and more! Skip Elsheimer founded and maintains the A/V Geeks Educational Film Archive of more than 24,000 educational and industrial 16mm films. He curates film programs at such venues at the Museum of the Moving Image, Alamo Drafthouse (Austin), Coolidge Corner Theatre (Brookline, Massachusetts), Anthology Film Archives, Aurora Picture Show (Houston), and Chicago Filmmakers.

1:00 PM KOYAANISQATSI (Dir: Godfrey Reggio, 1983, 86 min.) On beautiful 35 mm film! Released in 1983 by first-time director Godfrey Reggio, Koyaanisqatsi, which is Hopi for “life out of balance,” was hard to describe—a documentary without words or a definable subject featuring Ron Ficke’s mind-blowing time-lapse cinematography and a hypnotic score by Philip Glass. Now considered a classic, Koyaanisqatsi as an environmental manifesto of industrial life on this planet is unequalled, and although Reggio’s rhetoric is muted, the message is clear—that man has shifted a precarious relationship dangerously out-of-balance. 2:40 PM THE CITY DARK (Dir: Ian Cheney, 2011, 84 min.) is a feature documentary about light pollution and the disappearing night sky. It premiered in competition at the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize for Best Score/Music. After moving to light-polluted New York City from rural Maine, filmmaker Ian Cheney asks: “Do we need the dark?” Exploring the threat of killer asteroids in Hawaii, tracking hatching turtles along the Florida coast, and rescuing injured birds on Chicago streets, Cheney unravels the myriad implications of a globe glittering with lights—including increased breast cancer rates from exposure to light at night, and a generation of kids without a glimpse of the universe above. Featuring stunning astrophotography and a cast of eclectic scientists, philosophers, historians, and lighting designers, THE CITY DARK is the definitive story of light pollution and the disappearing stars. NOTE: FOR THOSE WHO ONLY WANT TO SEE KOYAANISQASTI, THERE WILL BE A 10-MIN INTERMISSION TO ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE. FOR THOSE WHO ONLY WANT TO SEE THE CITY DARK, PLEASE ARRIVE AROUND 2:30 PM TO BE SEATED DURING OUR 10-MIN INTERMISSION.

NATURAL DISASTER? YOU DON'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT: THE BIG UNEASY (Dir: Harry Shearer, 2010, 98 min.) with Harry Shearer via Skype! In 2005, a disaster struck New Orleans. You know the rest. Or do you? The media reported that what happened in New Orleans was a natural disaster primarily affecting poor black people. On both counts, the media was wrong. But its inability or unwillingness to report the hard truth—that these tragic floods creating widespread damage were caused by manmade errors in engineering and judgment—has failed both journalism and public safety. For what happened in New Orleans could happen again in other cities across the United States. In his feature-length documentary The Big Uneasy, humorist and New Orleans resident Harry Shearer gets the inside story of a disaster that could have been prevented from the people who were there. Shearer speaks to the tireless investigators and experts who poked through the muck as the water receded, and uncovers a courageous whistle-blower from the Army Corps of Engineers. Stick around for a Skype-aided Q&A with Harry Shearer!