April/May 2007
Why Having More No Longer Makes Us Happy
Bill McKibben
Communities Uniting for climate Action
Lesley Adams
Are Big Enviro Groups Holding Back the Anti-Warming Movement?
Megan Tady
Al Gore and the Wedges Game
Kelpie Wilson
Jody Woodruff
Plastic Bottles and Can Liners Under Scrutiny Again
Jody Woodruff
Creating a New Level of Awareness. Interview with Dr. Joe Dispenza
Katie Elliott
Ashland Independent Fillm Festival
Bowing to Fate, Growing to Destiny: A look at Women's Themes through Film
Marla Estes
Awakening to Our Full Potential
Arjuna Ardagh
Life Organizing: A New Way to Flow with Time
Jennifer Louden
Homelessness in the House
Coenraad Rogmans
Dharma Publishing
Karen Egan
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
Ashland Independent Film Festival, April 12-16
This year’s festival line-up includes a mixture of short and full length documentaries and feature films including four Academy Award nominees. The film Everything’s Cool features activists, scientists, and politicians who have struggled to rouse the public and the federal government to take action on global warming, and the industry funded think-tanks and lobbyists who challenge and dismiss the issue as hysteria. Included are the Weather Channel’s global warming specialist and Rick Piltz, the whistle blower who left his job as Senior Associate at the US Climate Change Science Center when the Bush administration edited his research. Piltz, now Director of Climate Science Watch, a program of the Government Accountability Project in Washington, DC, will attend a Saturday, April 14, 3 p.m. showing of Everything’s Cool to share his experience and take questions. Piltz testified at several Congressional hearings and was awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling at the National Press Club and honored as a free speech defender by the National Coalition Against Censorship.
In 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama filmmaker Rick Ray asks His Holiness the Dalai Lama “Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence?” Posing these questions and more Ray weaves together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East with the wisdom of the spiritual leader. Containing rare historical footage as well as film smuggled from modern Tibet, 10 Questions was an official selection at the Amnesty International Film Festival.
Beyond the Call is a film about three middle-aged, former soldiers who travel to the front lines of war delivering life saving humanitarian aid directly to civilians and doctors in some of the most dangerous yet beautiful places on Earth. Their personal convictions and courage drive them to places such as Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Burma, often when few if any other humanitarian aid organizations are around. The camera follows this trio as they take us on a journey into the heart of humanity and the soul of courage. Beyond the Call’s filmmaker, Adrian Belic, will receive an AIFF Rogue Award and will show his 1999 Academy Award nominated Genghis Blues. In this classic, Paul Pena, a blind bluesman, discovers Tuvan throatsinging on a shortwave program. Incredibly, Pena teaches himself the multi-harmonic ancient art through listening to recordings and travels to Tuva and becomes the first American ever to compete in an unusual contest of throatsinging. Pena is honored not only because he masters their cultural tradition, but as he learns to speak their language friendships flourishes.
The Edge of Eden: Living with Grizzlies features Canadian bear expert Charlie Russell who we follow through beautiful footage as he rescues two orphaned cubs from a squalid Russian Zoo and takes them to his cabin in the picturesque remote Russian wilderness. Over the course of one season he is the cubs’ surrogate mother teaching them everything he can about life in the wild. Russell learns that grizzlies are not the fearsome aggressive killers that so many believe but rather are a gentle peaceful creature and it is possible for man and bear to live together peacefully and safely.
The Blood of Yingzhou District won the Oscar in 2007 for Best Documentary: Short Subject. It is an intimate look at the relatively unknown AIDS epidemic in rural China. The film reveals how traditional obligations of family and village collide with terror of infection, and how these forces play out in a young boy’s life.
From the toxic depths of the Guatemala City Garbage Dump, the largest landfill in Central America, arises a beautiful story of the human spirit in the Oscar nominated Recycled Life. For decades the guajeros, the dump’s inhabitants who recycle the city’s trash, have been shunned by society and ignored by the government. A disastrous and fateful event in 2005 forever changed the face of this landfill and the lives of the many people who call it home.
Feature films include Ten Canoes which premiered at Cannes and won the Special Jury Prize. Shot in the forests of Australia’s remote far north, this is the first feature film in the Aboriginal language. Indigenous people from the area were involved at most levels of the production, from input into the script, editorial control, casting and selection of locations. Low And Behold is the story of a shy, aimless young man transplanted into post-Katrina New Orleans in the unlikely role of an insurance claims adjuster. Filmed by a Louisiana native on location in May 2006 it was written by and stars a New Orleans resident. The filmmakers made a point of assembling a cast and crew almost entirely made up of locals, even filming non-actors in their actual storm damaged homes. Equal parts black comedy, road movie and spiritual fairytale, Wristcutters: A Love Story charts the path that one young man takes to locate his equally dead girlfriend. Dark humor and a sense of impassioned romance coexist in this absurdist comedy about a man who won’t let anything stand between him and the love of his life. Tom Waits is among the new friends encountered in a strange after-life.
Festival membership passes and tickets are available at www.ashlandfilm.org or (541) 488-3823 and at the festival’s new pre-sale box office on the plaza in Ashland. Tickets are available at the Varsity Theatre during the festival.
