Wildlife

At the Fork

At the Fork

John Papola and Lisa Versaci/2016/90 min/Food-Agriculture

Saturday, March 4, 2:30 p.m. [W Suburbs]
Oak Park Public Library, Oak Park

FILM DESCRIPTION: Filmmaker and omnivore John Papola, together with his vegetarian wife Lisa, offer up a timely and refreshingly unbiased look at how farm animals are raised for our consumption. With unprecedented access to large-scale conventional farms, Papola asks the tough questions behind every hamburger, glass of milk and baby-back rib. What he discovers are not heartless industrialists, but America’s farmers — real people who, along with him, are grappling with the moral dimensions of farming animals for food. 

Family Films for Ages 3-8+

Family Films for Ages 3-8+

Saturday, March 4, 9:30 a.m. [W Suburbs]
Oak Park Public Library, Oak Park

Habitats! Join us for a morning of sing a-longs about animals in their habitats, plus short films Slugs and Bugs, and Kid of the Wild. Families will learn about opportunities for connecting with local nature through Go Green Oak Park, The Frog Lady (who will bring her reptile friends), the Park District of Oak Park/Austin Gardens Nature Center, and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County's Trailside Museum. Light refreshments will be served.

The Good Mind

The Good Mind

Gwendolen Cates/2016/66 min/Social Justice

Saturday, March 4, 3 p.m. [South]
U. of Chicago, Ida Noyes Hall, Chicago

FILM DESCRIPTION: The Onondaga Nation in central New York State is the Central Fire of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). This sovereign indigenous government, which follows the Great Law of Peace, inspired American democracy. The Onondagas advocate for the environment and share prophecies about climate change, while engaged in a battle with the state over ancestral lands stolen in defiance of a treaty with George Washington. 

Hometown Habitat

Hometown Habitat

Catherine Zimmerman/2016/90 min/Wildlife

Saturday, March 4, 1:30 p.m. [Lake County]
Prairie Crossing School, Grayslake

Saturday, March 4, 2:30 p.m. [W Suburbs]
Triton College, River Grove

Sunday, March 5, 3:30 p.m. [Downtown]
Peggy Notebaert Museum, Chicago

Monday, March 6, 7 p.m. [Kane County]
Waubonsee Community College, Aurora

CHICAGO PREMIERE. FILM DESCRIPTION: Hometown Habitat features renowned entomologist Dr. Douglas Tallamy, whose research, books and lectures on the use of non-native plants in landscaping, sound the alarm about habitat and species loss. Tallamy provides the narrative thread that challenges the notion that humans are here and nature is someplace else.

Planetary

Planetary

Guy Reid/2015/42min/Climate Change

SOLD OUT!
Sunday, March 5, 12:30 p.m. [Downtown]
Adler Planetarium, Chicago

FILM DESCRIPTION: Planetary is a provocative and breathtaking wakeup call – a cross continental, cinematic journey, that explores our cosmic origins and our future as a species. It is a poetic and humbling reminder that now is the time to shift our perspective. Planetary asks us to rethink who we really are, to reconsider our relationship with ourselves, each other and the world around us – to remember that we are PLANETARY.

A Plastic Ocean

A Plastic Ocean

Craig Leeson/2016/100 min/Waste

Friday, March 10, 6:30 p.m.
[Lake County][VR]
College of Lake County, Grayslake

SOLD OUT!
Saturday, March 11, 3 p.m. [Downtown]
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago

FILM DESCRIPTION: In the center of the Pacific Ocean gyre our researchers found more plastic than plankton. A Plastic Ocean documents the newest science, proving how plastics, once they enter the oceans, break up into small particulates that enter the food chain where they attract toxins like a magnet. These toxins are stored in seafood’s fatty tissues, and eventually consumed by us. 

Seed, The Untold Story

Seed, The Untold Story

Taggart Siegel and Jon Betz/2016/93 min/Food-Agriculture

Monday, March 6, 6:30 p.m. [North]
North Shore Country Day, Winnetka

FILM DESCRIPTION: In our modern world, seeds are in grave danger. In less than a century of industrial agriculture, our once abundant seed diversity—painstakingly created by ancient farmers and gardeners over countless millennia—has been drastically winnowed down to a handful of mass-produced varieties. Under the spell of industrial “progress” and lust for profit, our quaint family farmsteads have given way to mechanized agribusinesses sowing genetically identical crops on a monstrous scale. 

Shifting Sands

Shifting Sands

Lee Botts and Pat Wisniewski/2016/57 min/Conservation

Monday, March 6, 7 p.m. [South]
Pullman National Monument Information Center, Chicago

Thursday, March 9, 7 p.m. [West]
Oak Park Public Library, Oak Park

Saturday, March 11, 2:30 p.m.
[Lake County]
Waukegan Public Library, Waukegan

FILM DESCRIPTION: Shifting Sands tells the story of how one region, where rare plants grow in the shadows of smokestacks, sparked a movement for a national park; a movement which eventually led to game-changing environmental policies with worldwide impact and unique partnerships on the path to a more sustainable world.

A Small Good Thing

A Small Good Thing

Pamela Tanner Boll/ 2015/71 min/ People-Culture

Sunday, March 5, 12:30 p.m. [W Suburbs]
St. Giles Catholic Church, Oak Park

Sunday, March 5, 3:30p.m. [North]
Wilmette Theatre, Wilmette

CHICAGO PREMIERE. FILM DESCRIPTION: For the longest time, we’ve been living as though the more we have—the more money, the more goods, the more territory—the happier we’ll be. Surprisingly, over the last fifty years as our standard of living has improved, our happiness has not. A Small Good Thing examines how our ideal of the American Dream has come to the end of its promise. The film tells the stories of people moving away from a philosophy of ‘more is better’ toward a more holistic conception of happiness — one based on a close connection to their bodies and health, to the natural world, and to the greater good.

Sonic Sea

Sonic Sea

Michelle Dougherty and Daniel Hinerfield/2016/60 min/Wildlife

SOLD OUT!
Thursday, March 9, 7 p.m. [North]
Institute of Cultural Affairs, Chicago

FILM DESCRIPTION FROM DISCOVERY.COM: "Sonic Sea travels beneath the ocean's surface to uncover the damaging consequences of increased ocean noise pollution and what can be done to stop it. Narrated by Academy Award-nominated actress Rachel McAdams and featuring interviews with marine ecologists, ocean life experts, and wildlife activists, including Grammy-Award winning musician, human rights and environmental activist Sting, Sonic Sea highlights how noise from a range of man-made sources has affected whales in recent years, including the mass stranding of whales around the planet."