Presented by
Martha’s Vineyard Film Society
in collaboration with
Vineyard Conservation Society
Presents
10th Annual Martha’s Vineyard Environmental Film Festival
Coming to the MV Film Center May 23-26, 2024
CLICK HERE TO BUY AN ALL ACCESS PASS
Thursday, May 23rd 7:30pm
SONGS OF EARTH
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND MORE
Preceded by Reception in lobby with live music by David Hannon
Songs of Earth is a majestic symphony for the big screen. The film is an audio-visual composition of the earth’s primordial forces with our camera taking you from inside nature’s smallest components to outside the wild panoramas. The filmmaker’s father (85) is our guide. Bringing us through Norway’s most scenic valley, he grew up in and where generations have been living alongside nature to survive. The sounds of the earth harmonize together to make music in this breathtaking journey.
“Unique cinematic experience” – TIFF September 2023
“The cinematic nature experience of the year. A magnificent existential journey.” – CPH:DOX March 2023
Friday, May 24th 4:00pm
CANARY
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND MORE
Witness the extraordinary life of Dr. Lonnie Thompson, an explorer who went where no scientist had gone before and transformed our idea of what is possible. Daring to seek Earth’s history contained in glaciers atop the tallest mountains in the world, Lonnie found himself on the frontlines of climate change–his life’s work evolving into a salvage mission to recover these priceless historical records before they disappear forever.
“A documentary that patiently traces… groundbreaking efforts extracting ice cores from tropical mountaintops.” -New York Times
“The journey of Thompson’s life is a riveting, inspiring every-man story. The humble underdog transforms into an adventurer visionary and improbable pillar of the scientific community.” – InBetweenDrafts
Friday, May 24th 7:30pm
GIANTS RISING
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND MORE
Journey into the heart of America’s most iconic forests, GIANTS RISING reveals the secrets and the saga of the coast redwoods–the tallest and among the oldest living beings on Earth. It’s an epic tale that explores the wonders of these silent giants and our dramatic, ever-evolving relationship with them. Living links to the past, redwoods also hold powers that may play a role in our future, including their ability to withstand fire and capture carbon, to offer clues about longevity, and even to enhance our own well-being. How do they do it –and how will redwoods keep working their magic as they’re pushed to their limits? Through the voices of biologists, artists, Native peoples and others racing to understand and safeguard these trees, GIANTS RISING reveals the scientific wonders of redwoods, our deep cultural ties to them, and efforts to help these iconic forests overcome the legacy of logging that nearly wiped them out. It’s a story that offers lessons about resilience and connection, and the promise of solutions that will help us ALL rise up from the past and face the challenges that lay ahead.
Saturday, May 25th 4:00pm
FARMING WHILE BLACK
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND MORE
Farming While Black is a feature-length documentary film which examines the historical plight of Black farmers in the United States and the rising generation of Black farmers reclaiming their rightful ownership to land and reconnecting with their ancestral roots.
As the co-founder of Soul Fire Farm in upstate New York, Leah Penniman finds strength in the deep historical knowledge of African agrarianism – agricultural practices that can heal people and the planet. Influenced and inspired by Karen Washington, a pioneer in urban community gardens in New York City, and fellow farmer and organizer Blain Snipstal, Leah galvanizes around farming as the basis of revolutionary justice.
In 1910, Black farmers owned 14 percent of all American farmland. Over the intervening decades, that number fell below two percent, the result of racism, discrimination, and dispossession. The film chronicles Penniman and two other Black farmers’ efforts to reclaim their agricultural heritage. Collectively, their work has a major impact, as each is a leader in sustainable agriculture and food justice movements.
Saturday, May 25th 7:30pm
WE’RE ALL PLASTIC PEOPLE NOW
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND MORE
with director Rory Fielding in person!
We’re All Plastic People Now is an Emmy Winning documentary introduced
by Ted Danson and featured at the 2024 Santa Fe Film Festival.
It’s in the air. It’s in the water. In an era of throw-away ease, plastic has cost us our well-being. It’s been found inside our bodies, our colons, our brains, in breast milk and developing wombs. Now, it’s even in our hearts.
This groundbreaking film, for the first time ever, tests the producer’s blood and four generations of family members for chemicals derived from plastic. The results are alarming.
Rory Fielding is an Emmy award-winning director and producer. His recent film, We’re All Plastic People Now explores the effects of plastic pollution on human health. We’re All Plastic People Now won the 2023 Emmy for a Long Form Documentary. The film, introduced by Ted Danson airs nationwide. We’re All Plastic Now has been accepted by the prestigious Santa Fe Film Festival, April 2024.
Fielding produced the national PBS Documentary Troubled Waters featuring Ted Danson, highlighting the effects of climate change and human impact upon our oceans and its sea creatures. It was nominated for five Emmys, winning two for Directing and Photography.
He directed 1955, Seven Days of Fall, broadcast nationwide on PBS. 1955 earned three major awards including New York Independent Film Festival Award for Best Documentary. 1955 is a baseball classic, now residing in the Hall of Fame, Cooperstown NY.
He has directed numerous films including biographies of musical artists, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and other notable artists.
Rory was twice honored by the Associated Press for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. He is a graduate of New York University where he served as an Associate Professor of Film & Television and continues to screen his works and guest lecture at major universities. He serves as an Emmy judge for the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sunday, May 26th 1:00pm
DROWNING and SOUNDS OF THE OCEAN
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND MORE
with director James Hutchinson
DROWNING was filmed on Martha’s Vineyard, director James Hutchinson will join us after the film for a discussion
Since its European settlement in 1602, nearly 4,000 years after the presence of the Wampanoag Tribe communities, the island of Martha’s Vineyard has been a long sought-after tourist destination, sitting roughly 7 miles off of the coast of Cape Cod. Serving as a year-round home to nearly 23,000 residents, and amassing a population of 200,000 in the summer, the Vineyard has proven itself as a picturesque vacation spot. Year-round residents work long hours in the fishing industry, as well as construction, hospitality, and real estate. It is home to some of the rarest and most biodiverse habitats, such as sandplains, coastal heathlands, and salt marshes that provide essential ecosystem services. Unfortunately, climate change threatens all of this as sea-level rise, accelerations in temperature, and extreme weather put the social, ecological, and economic well-being of Martha’s Vineyard at risk. “Drowning” explores climate change and the threatening effects it has had on Martha’s Vineyard, asking just how the island will survive if action doesn’t occur.
Sounds of the Ocean is an award-winning immersive experience that invites you and your family to the heart of the deep blue sea. In a society burdened with stress, this transformative project offers calm and rest. It is an invitation to forge a deep connection with the enchanting life that dwells beneath the waves. The experience combines sounds of whales & dolphins, live music, dance, immersive visual art and ocean imagery to guide the audience on a mindful underwater odyssey.
Are you ready to take the dive?
Within the realm of film, he is interested in producing and directing. In his personal works, James prefers to work in the genre of documentary, focusing on global issues such as climate change and ocean pollution, hoping to advocate for change.
James has spent every summer on the island with his parents and grandparents. As a child, his grandfather spent summers on the Vineyard, and passed the tradition on to his mother. James considers himself a seasonal “washashore” and has created years of memories on the island that include summers working at Soft As A Grape, standing as a groomsman atop the Gay Head Cliffs at his uncle’s wedding, and introducing his friends to the uniqueness of the island.
Sunday, May 26th 4:00pm
INUNDATION DISTRICT
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND MORE
Followed by a discussion with Filmmaker David Abel
In a time of rising seas and intensifying storms, one of the world’s wealthiest, most-educated cities made a fateful decision to spend billions of dollars erecting a new district along its coast — on landfill, at sea level. Unlike other places imperiled by climate change, this neighborhood of glass towers housing some of the world’s largest companies was built well after scientists began warning of the threats, including many at its renowned universities. The city, which already has more high-tide flooding than nearly any other in the United States, called its new quarter the Innovation District. But with seas rising inexorably, and at an accelerating rate, others are calling the neighborhood by a different name: Inundation District.
The 79-minute film, a production by The Boston Globe, premiered in the fall of 2023 as the closing night film of the GlobeDocs Film Festival.
An award-winning reporter, documentary filmmaker, and professor of journalism, David Abel has covered war in the Balkans, unrest in Latin America, national security issues in Washington D.C., terrorism in New York and Boston, and climate change and poverty throughout New England.
A longtime reporter at The Boston Globe, Abel is also a professor of the practicein the journalism department at Boston University.
Abel and his colleagues at the Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. His films have been broadcast on the Discovery Channel, PBS, BBC World News, and other major platforms, winning numerous awards. His most recent film, “Entangled,” won a Jackson Wild award, known as the Oscars of nature films, and was nominated for a national Emmy. Abel’s work has also won an Edward R. Murrow award, the Ernie Pyle award from the Scripps Howard Foundation, and Sigma Delta Chi awards for feature reporting and climate reporting.
Sunday, May 26th 7:30pm
DOWNWIND
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS AND MORE
followed by a Q&A with directors Mark Shapiro and Douglas Brian Miller via Zoom
Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Mercury, Nevada? The latter was the site for the testing of 928 nuclear weapons on American soil from 1951 to 1992. The fallout is still lethally impacting Americans today. Martin Sheen narrates this harrowing exposé of the United States’ disregard for everyone living… downwind.
The Vineyard Conservation Society is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to preserving the environment, character, and quality of life of Martha’s Vineyard through advocacy, education, and the protection of the Island’s land and waters. VCS is the Island’s only conservation organization whose mission includes advocacy and public education, as well as resource protection. We believe that the future health of our Island and its waters will increasingly depend on an informed public. www.vineyardconservation.org
FESTIVAL SPONSORS:
