Three short films will be shown:
Verge
Chingtien Chu/2017/3 min/Wildlife
CHICAGO-AREA PREMIERE. FILM DESCRIPTION: This non-dialogue, high-quality animated short follows a young sea turtle’s ocean voyage through polluted water. As only 1 in 1,000 baby sea turtles survive to adulthood, this small film shows the big struggle facing marine life today.
Straws
Linda Booker/2017/32 min/Waste
FILM DESCRIPTION: Through colorful animation and segments narrated by Oscar winner Tim Robbins, Straws shows us the problems caused by plastic pollution and empowers us to be part of the solution. The film features an 11-year old from Costa Rica who developed a campaign, #NoStrawChallenge, that has become a world-wide movement making waves. Activists estimate that every day in the U.S., more than 500,000,000 straws are used once and tossed. Ocean Conservancy ranks plastic straws as the #5 most common item found on beaches. Straws wind up in landfills, litter streets and add to the estimated 8.5 metric tons of plastic debris in oceans annually.
The Discarded
Annie Costner, Adrienne Hall and Carla Dauden/2016/18 min/Waste
CHICAGO-AREA PREMIERE. FILM DESCRIPTION: Filmmakers Annie Costner (actor Kevin Costner’s daughter), Adrienne Hall and Carla Dauden juxtapose stunning drone-captured images of Rio de Janiero’s natural beauty with sewage and garbage that pour into its bay. In Portuguese with English subtitles, the film is narrated by locals, including a 9-year old boy who sails the garbage-choked waters and an elderly man who turns debris into art. Teens, athletes, scientists, and policymakers speak about the seemingly insurmountable challenges of Rio’s pollution crisis and reasons for hope. Filmmakers show the city’s effort to bandage the problem with expensive one-time solutions to serve tourists for the Summer Olympics. Viewers are also left with big questions: What does it mean to ignore subsets of society, to label some as worthy, and others as discarded?
Saturday, March 10, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. [W Suburbs]
Thatcher Woods Pavilion, 8030 Chicago Ave., River Forest
Come share your solutions to reduce, reuse and recycle. Program guests are Design Teacher Tim Walsh of Percy Julian Middle School and Liita Forsyth, owner of Little Bits Workshop. Ann McElhatton of Beach Chair Scientist and Jeff Shelden of the Sierra Club Water Team will help sort the facts, while Sue Crothers of the River Forest Sustainability Commission will share ways to make change. Facilitator: Wendy Negron, Educator in Chicagoland schools.
Doors open 30 minutes before start time. Arrive early to avoid lines and get best seats. ADA compliant accessible venue.Refreshments available.