Young Filmmaker Voices (for Families with Kids Age 7 to 12+)

Young environmentalists, join us for 7 award-winning short films and discussion, where we'll get loud about our planet! We'll also settle in to contemplate and celebrate the power of creativity, art, and nature. Enjoy healthy snacks and activities.

IN PERSON: Saturday, April 20, 1:30 to 3:15 p.m. CDT [W Suburbs]
Oak Park Public Library, 834 Lake St.,
First Floor Storytime Room
Doors open 30 minutes before start time. Arrive early to avoid lines,
check in/register, enjoy refreshments, and get best seats.

ADA compliant accessible venue.

DISCUSSION CO-FACILITATORS:

  • Wendy Negron, Early Childhood Specialist and Educator

  • Elizabeth Schult, Children's Assistant, Oak Park Public Library

DISCUSSION GUESTS:

  • Neo Sky James, One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest Winner and Director, Submerged

  • Henry G., Young Environmentalist

IN PERSON: Saturday, April 20, 1:30 to 3 p.m. CDT [West]
Chicago Public Library, Austin Branch, 5615 W. Race,
Auditorium, Chicago
[West]
Doors open 30 minutes before start time. Arrive early to avoid lines,
check in/register, enjoy refreshments, and get best seats.

ADA compliant accessible venue.

DISCUSSION FACILITATOR:

  • Lucia Leon, Owner, Lightly Farmed

DISCUSSION GUESTS:

  • Neo Sky James, One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest Winner and Director, Submerged

Badlands Bloom
Atiyeh Hess and Honei Semsar/2017/4 min
This stop-motion film is about a grumpy loner living in a remote desert who gets an unwanted visitor that may have the answers he seeks. Hess and Semsar graduated from Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, California.

Green Gone
Tess Moretti-Hill, Gabriel Jeffers, Mahea Dunn, Keanu Frith/2019/3 min
“Green Gone” is a parody of a typical commercial for weed killer and/or pesticide. With perky music in the background, the narrator explains that his product, Green Gone, kills all living things on contact: rodents, weeds, bugs, flowers, and trees. This film was a group project produced under the Maui Huliau Foundation in Maui, Hawaii.

Bad Bugs
Bryn Wright/2021/2 min
Wright’s 2-minute film “Bad Bugs” is a stop-motion claymation, delightful in its simplicity. She explains that we shouldn’t use pesticides because they kill the bad bugs and the good bugs too. Wright is from Carlsbad, California.

Sporktagion
Students of Heritage Middle School (Berwyn, Illinois)/2013/8 min
After an invasion by disposable sporks, students are infected with a virus that makes them throw almost anything in the trash. Sporktagion, also known as Sporkitis, has a simple solution: wash silverware instead of using disposable sporks.

Submerged
Neo Sky James/2023/4 min
A teenage boy has two contrasting dreams: one is a beautiful blue aquarium filled with exotic fish, sea turtles, and jelly fish, and another is a colorless, polluted body of water, filled with plastic bags, cans, straws, and debris. James is a student at DePaul University in Chicago.

No Time to Waste
Students of Dryden Elementary School (Arlington Hts., Illinois)/2019/3 min
Students demonstrate abundant ways to make a small impact, from repurposing old crayons to tossing lunch scraps into a compost barrel. On a green screen behind, vibrant digital drawings illustrate the message while paper cut-out drawings reinforce the message to recycle, reuse, compost, walk and bike.

My Brand New Car
Paulina Verdalet/2023/3 min
A grandfather gives his grandson toy cars of all colors and varieties. The boy loves adding to his collection and racing the vehicles until they begin to fill the house with fumes and smoke. Paulina Verdalet is a graduate of the National School of Cinematic Arts in Mexico City, Mexico.