Despite the confinement and anxieties surrounding this past year, 149 students age 8 to 25 managed to make and submit films to the One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest. Of those, 10 will receive top prizes at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 13, in the Awards Celebration, while 15 Honorable Mention films will be screened during the Earth Day Festival in April.
A trip to Chicago to accept his first-place award in the One Earth Film Festival’s Young Filmmakers Contest brought Nathan Goswick more than he expected. The 17-year old’s winning entry, “Plastic Bags,” captured the attention of Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a nonprofit that presses corporations on sustainability.
One Earth Film Festival takes particular care to attend to the collaborative potential between film, venue and community when planning screening events. The match doesn't happen haphazardly. The sensitive pairing of particular films with venues and communities surfaced again and again during conversations with three venue partners—Elio DeArrudah at Universidad Popular, Liz Lyon at Plant Chicago, and Connie Spreen at the Experimental Station.
Rakel Garðarsdóttir is the co-director and co-producer of “Useless,” a documentary that looks at why food and fashion waste have become a pressing social and environmental problem, and what people can do to change it. Garðarsdóttir lives and works in Reykjavík, Iceland.
One Earth Festival had a few questions for Rakel about the making of the documentary.
Festival audiences expect to leave screenings with information that will guide them in taking the next steps on their sustainability journey. That is the Power of We. When people feel connected to others by a common passion or commitment, much gets done. Problems are solved. Communities become healthier. The Earth gets healed.
Chicago is fortunate to have many advocates on the front lines of climate action and environmental and social justice.
When most people retire, they kick back, take cruises, and visit the grandchildren. Sally Stovall was not most people. She did, indeed, relish visiting her grandchildren, but after she retired from a career in organizational development, Sally embarked on a new, vibrant career as climate activist and community organizer.
