Arts & Entertainment
Mini film festival puts weeklong spotlight on Earth Day
One Earth Film Festival, City of Chicago bring more community partners into their annual environmentally focused extravaganza
One Earth Film Festival and the City of Chicago are expanding their annual Earth Day collaboration this year into the Earth Day Week Mini Film Fest. In all, 16 screening events will take place April 22-27 at locations— universities, churches, libraries and other public-transit friendly spaces — throughout the city and the suburbs.
The mini festival allows community partners to host their own One Earth-style screening experience using the program model developed and honed by the One Earth Film Festival.
“One Earth and the City of Chicago have partnered on Earth Day events for the last several years,” festival director Ana Garcia Doyle said. “This year with the mini fest, we are helping others do what we do best: screen high-quality environment films followed by a facilitated audience discussion. During Earth Day week, we want there to be as many opportunities as possible for people to become aware of environmental issues and find their way to solutions and actions they can take.”
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Following the 10-day regular festival in March, the One Earth planning team invited community partners to host a screening featuring one of three films, “Before the Flood,” “Happening” and “Sustainable,” which explore climate change, energy and food. Through a special arrangement with filmmakers, partners could purchase for a nominal fee a DVD of one of the films for their screening. One a partner registered to host a screening, One Earth provided a screening guide.
Each Earth Day Week screening has different program offerings that might include: a filmmaker appearance, Tesla test drive, renewable energy demonstration, panel discussion and more. Food will be served at all of the events.
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In other Earth Day Week events, from 2 to 4 p.m., Sat., April 27 at the River Forest Library, One Earth will screen 10 honorable mention winners from the festival’s 2019 Young Filmmakers Contest. Though there is no admission charge, anyone wishing to attend is strongly advised to reserve seats online.