In the two years since the pandemic forced a pivotal shift, One Earth Film Festival didn’t retract. In fact, it grew and is now reaching audiences well beyond the Chicago area. You might say the festival has become a whole-Earth event.
This year One Earth Film Festival drew viewers from Hawaii, Japan, Africa and Australia as well as California, Massachusetts, Kansas and many other states. That meant that more people could be moved to take action—to “Turn the Tide.”
It’s time to look back and celebrate all the things we’ve accomplished together this year. Here’s 2021 by the numbers.
4,046 attendees at 26 film watch parties
At each of the virtual events during the main Fest Season in March and during Earth Week in April, we learned about the climate crisis, were presented with more than 250 action ideas, and pledged to take action.
Much has been written about the lack of access to fresh and healthy foods in the West and South Sides of Chicago. Many of us read about it. Many of us live it. Some brilliant people are actively working to revise that story. People like Liz Abunaw, owner and operator of Forty Acres Fresh Market, which serves the city of Chicago and western suburbs along Interstate 290 up to Westchester, Ill. . . .
Abunaw is not alone in her efforts to enrich the local food supply. Austin Eats Initiative is a collaboration of organizations that promotes grocery access, culinary entrepreneurship, food education, community gardens, and urban farms in the Austin community, which is Chicago’s second-largest neighborhood by population and size. . . . On Thursday, Oct. 21, the group is staging a screening and discussion of the documentary film, “Can You Dig This.” You have two ways of seeing the film and participating in the discussion: in person or virtually.
Award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt created a documentary film journey to learn more about the African American cuisine known as soul food. Here’s a sample menu: fried chicken, black-eyed peas, candied yams, and banana pudding for dessert. What’s not to love? The flavors are an enticing blend of West African and Deep American Southern cuisines.
Hurt’s resulting work, “Soul Food Junkies,” is a rich exploration of history, humor, and stories about this cuisine’s soul-warming and cultural benefits as well as possible health consequences.
Q: Tell me about the film’s title.
A: It comes from a quote by Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)—a revered environmentalist of the past century. He said, "We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." In other words, land is something we can’t live without. Humans don’t live in a vacuum. We depend as much on the health of the ants and the bees and the dung beetles and the soil as we do on the larger flora and fauna.
Most people who get married and decide to have children build a nest and settle in. Clement and Sophie Guerra did the opposite: they cashed in their savings and flew to South America. The result of their deep commitment to listening and learning is the revealing documentary “The Condor and the Eagle,” a film that profiles women leaders of communities most impacted by the fossil fuel industry. It will be screening on Tuesday, April 20, at 6:30 p.m. CDT.
Julie Howe interviewed Clement Guerra to learn more about why they made the film and what they learned.
