There is a debate heating up in Kansas about the proposed expansion of the Holcomb Station coal-fired power plant. Proponents of Sunflower Electric Power’s plant expansion cite the need to meet the growing load requirement in the region. Opponents argue that Kansas has the nation’s second-best wind resource and that in the long run, renewable energy can meet energy requirements at lower cost to rate payers and to the environment.
The Kansas Department of Health & Environment’s (KDHE) has hosted three public hearings this week to listen to the voices of Kansans. The public commenting remains open through August 15th (unless it is extended).
Dirty Business actually covered the Elk River Wind Project in Kansas, where Pete Ferrell is one of four landowners leasing the land for the wind mills. He will be part of the post-screening discussions.
Also part of the Q&A afterwards includes Scott Allegrucci of The Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy (GPACE) and Stephanie Cole of Sierra Club Kansas. The discussion will include ideas on how the audience can submit their comments to KDHE before the commenting period is closed on August 15th. The KDHE public commenting process is likely to be the last opportunity to have your voice heard regarding the proposed coal plant and perhaps the best opportunity to influence the state’s – and the nation’s – energy policy.
Is your community having a similar debate? Dirty Business will be available for house parties and community screenings in September. Stay tuned!
In an OpEd in the New York Daily News, No Impact Man Colin Beavan tackles the connection between our consumption-based economy and the BP oil spill. He opens his piece comparing oil to alcohol:
Question: When an alcoholic leaves a bar, gets behind the wheel and drunkenly drives into his third or fourth wreck, do you blame the bartender who served the drinks or the alcoholic who drank them? Now answer this: When a society addicted to greater and greater fossil fuel use experiences what may amount to the largest oil spill in world history – after a growing number of other fossil fuel catastrophes – do you blame the oil company that drilled for the oil or the society that uses it?
Colin goes on to provide examples of how we might find ourselves being guilty of over consuming fossil fuels. He states, “Typically, our knee-jerk is to blame the greedy corporations and do-nothing politicians. But how much more could be accomplished if each American accepted that he or she plays a part in the problem and therefore could contribute to the solution?”
The No Impact Project challenges us to take a step back and look at our lifestyles to see where we can make less of a carbon foot print on earth by using as little energy as possible. Through the experiment, people realize that they can live fulfilling lives without the things they take for granted everyday. For more information about the No Impact project and to participate in the experiment, visit www.noimpactproject.org.
Watch the video below to see the impact of the No Impact Week Project:
Reel Engagement participants and facilitators, from left to right: Robbie Gemmel, Josh Levin, Rennifer Redfearn, Lora Smith, Kristin Henry, Taira Akbar, Deb Anderson, Josh Fox, Emily Verellen, Judith Helfand, Jen Gilomen, Amanda Berger, Natalie Difford, Peter Bull. Photo courtesy of Peter Bull.
During Reel Engagement for the Energy and Natural Resource Revolution, we spent a week drilling down deep (excuse the pun) into audience engagement plans with filmmakers, coordinators, and non-profit organizations on energy and natural resource extraction issues. We’ll be updating you shortly on our website with exciting collaboration plans.
Natalie Difford of Chicken & Egg Pictures and Emily Verellen of the Fledgling Fund have been catching some of the excitement on their blogs, Facebook and Twitter pages.
In this video, Emily asks Lora Smith, the Appalachian Regional Coordinator for the fantastic film, Deep Down, what sustains her activism.
How can filmmakers whose movies touch on similar issues collaborate? How can they not!?!
I’m preparing to spend next week in the Bay Area with some amazing and dedicated filmmakers and audience engagement coordinators. We’ll be figuring out where the overlaps in their campaigns lie and how they can cover more ground together than they could alone. The films chosen for this innovative retreat are Cape Wind, Deep Down, Dirty Business, Gas Land, Split Estate, Sun Come Up, and When Two Worlds Collide. These projects are all focusing on the impact of unchecked natural resource extraction and/or innovative solutions for turning things around before it is too late. You can watch the trailers on our workshop page.
On day four, we’ll head to the Brower Center in Berkeley and will be joined by a number of groups central to the energy and natural resource revolution, including Bay Localize, Conservation International, Critical Resistance, Earthworks, Environmental Working Group, Green for All, NRDC, Physicians For Social Responsibility (SF), Post Carbon Institute, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Project Survival Media, Rainforest Action Network, The Redford Center, Sierra Club, Speak Out, The 11th Hour Project, and additional foundation funders and individual donors.
At the end of the week we’ll regroup with the filmmakers and audience engagement coordinators to determine the essential next steps to help collaboration flourish.
We’ll be sure to post updates along the way here, as well as on our Facebook and Twitter page. If you are with an organization, foundation, or brand and are interested in joining this collaborative in some capacity in the future, contact me at khenry at workingfilms.org.
This week the Obama administration approved our nation’s first offshore wind farm to be built in Nantucket Sound, off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. When completed, the 130 turbines will be able to produce enough electricity to meet 75 percent of the demand to the nearby islands. What an exciting moment in the environmental and sustainable energy movement! Though on the opposing side, there are local Cape Cod residents who aren’t very happy about seeing turbines in their distant horizon.
It seems like dirty energy has been getting a lot of attention lately and more documentary films are being made that expose their business practices and negative effects. Cape Wind will be joining a number of these films (inlcluding Dirty Business) at our Reel Engagement Residency next month in San Francisco. From stories of mountain top removal to natural gas drilling to mineral rights and land ownership, participating films at Reel Engagement will focus on the design of community engagement campaigns that explore the consequences of our relentless demand for energy and natural resources that reveal glimmers of hopeful change from the emerging energy revolution.
Judith Helfand, our co-founder, is getting her due honors all this week – a testament to her passion and commitment and downright brilliance.
Honors start at the San Francisco Women’s Film Festival this Wednesday, April 7th, 2010. The night will open with a tribute to Judith featuring A Healthy Baby Girl, Ek Velt: At the End of the World, and excerpts from Blue Vinyl followed by a Q&A.
On Thursday, April 8th at noon, Judith will be teaching a master class where she will share storytelling strategies that lead to effective, resonant and riveting filmmaking and ‘call to action’ activism.
Following that at 2:30pm, Judith will lead a workshop on applying to Chicken & Egg Pictures, the other organizational “hat” she wears – co-founded with our board members Julie Benello and Wendy Ettinger. The workshop will answer many questions critical to their application process.
At 5:00pm, Judith will be hosting a filmmakers’ panel discussing how STORY LEADS TO ACTION! Panelists include Christie Herring (The Campaign), Sally Rubin (Deep Down), Dawn Valadez (Going on 13), Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday (Barber of Birmingham), Gabrielle Mullem (The Music’s Gonna Get You Through) and Lynn Hershmann (Woman Art Revolution).
It doesn’t stop at the San Francisco Women’s Film Festival, though. Judith is headed to the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham NC, where they are screening The Uprising of ’34, the film Judith co-directed with George Stoney, on Sunday, April 11 at 1:40pm. Part of a series about labor programmed by filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert; Judith will be at the Q & A.
On Monday, April 12th, the United States Green Building Council, New Jersey Chapter (USGBC-NJ) will be presenting a panel discussion about the sustainability of PVC called “Blue Vinyl, Green Vinyl?… Nice Vinyl, Mean Vinyl?” Please visit USGBC-NJ to register for this event.
We know Judith would love to see old and new friends at all these events. I am joining her at Full Frame, if you’re there, say hello.
Would you like to see the United States recycle just as much garbage as they do in Cairo? Then check out this Garbage Dreams widget. You can watch a clip from the award-winning film about the inspiring recycling practices of the Zaballeen in Cairo and sign onto a letter asking President Obama to support policies that will assure 75% of our trash gets recycled by 2015. Most importantly you can use the widget to sign up to host your own screening of the film and create an ever bigger impact with it in your community.
Please be sure to click on the share button in the widget and post it to your blog, Facebook or Twitter, or just pass it along through email so that others can check out the film and get involved!
2010 is starting off with a bang for the acclaimed documentary Garbage Dreams.
Recently short-listed for an Oscar Award, the film will open theatrically in New York City January 6th through the 12th at the IFC Center (323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street). Director Mai Iskander will appear in person at the 6:30pm shows Wednesday, January 6 – Sunday, January 10.
Working Films is also collaborating with ITVS’ Community Cinema Program to bring Garbage Dreams free of charge to over 50 cities across the U.S this month.
We’re also coordinating a grassroots Garbage Dreams Tour aimed at advancing zero waste and recycling initiatives.
The IDA/Humanitas Award, a new prize for 2009, went to Mai Iskander’s Garbage Dreams. The IDA/ Humanitas Award is given to a documentarian whose film strives to unify the human family by exploring the stories of human beings who are different in culture, race, lifestyle, political loyalties and religious beliefs in order to break down the wall of ignorance and fear that separates us.
As you may know Working Films is directing the Garbage Dreams Tour, a community-based screening campaign aimed at demonstrating the true value of trash and the cost of throwing out the expertise of the Zaballeen, Egypt’s “garbage people,” who recycle 80% of everything they collect.
The 2009 IDA Documentary Awards took place on Friday, Dec. 4 at 8 pm at the Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA.
There is a debate heating up in Kansas about the proposed expansion of the Holcomb Station coal-fired power plant. Proponents of Sunflower Electric Power’s plant expansion cite the need to meet the growing load requirement in the region. Opponents argue that Kansas has the nation’s second-best wind resource and that in the long run, renewable energy can meet energy requirements at lower cost to rate payers and to the environment.
In an 
Honors start at the 
2010 is starting off with a bang for the acclaimed documentary 
The IDA/Humanitas Award, a new prize for 2009, went to Mai Iskander’s Garbage Dreams. The IDA/ Humanitas Award is given to a documentarian whose film strives to unify the human family by exploring the stories of human beings who are different in culture, race, lifestyle, political loyalties and religious beliefs in order to break down the wall of ignorance and fear that separates us.
