Mar

Nor any drop to drink

The Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital celebrates its 20th anniversary March 13 through 25 with 180 documentary, narrative, animated, archival, experimental and children’s films selected to provide fresh perspectives on environmental issues facing our planet. The critical relationship between health and the environment is a special theme of the 2012 Festival, which features cinematic work from 42 countries and 93 Washington D.C., United States and world premieres. Seventy-five filmmakers and 115 special guests will discuss their work at the Festival.

Iconic documentary filmmaker Ken Burns presents a sneak preview with clips from his upcoming film, The Dust Bowl. Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker hosts a retrospective of her films, including her latest, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, winner of the Festival’s Polly Krakora Award for artistry in film. Eco-filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia screens the world premiere of Symphony of the Soil, highlighting the significance of soil as an overlooked protagonist of Earth’s story.

The film, ""Broken Tail: A Tiger's Last Journey," winner of the Grand Teton Award at the 2011 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, will be shown on March 24 at the National Museum of Natural History. Credit: © Nanak Chand Dhingra

The Festival kicks off on opening night with the Washington, D.C. premiere of Switch, about transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy, and a memorial tribute to Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Prize-winner Wangari Maathai. The Festival closes with a selection from 2012 Sundance Film Festival, A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet, that captures the history of the environmental movement in the United States.

Academy Award-winning director Jessica Yu’s Last Call at the Oasis, identifies the global water crisis as the central issue facing the world in this century. Watershed: Exploring a New Water Ethic for the New West, directed by Mark Decena and produced by James Redford, Jill Tidman and Renata Foucre, offers a new plan for equitably sharing the scarce water of the Colorado River and will have its world premiere at the Festival. Robert Redford introduces the film. Ocean advocate Alexandra Cousteau focuses on a local river, the Potomac, in her clips presentation from Expedition Blue Planet: North America.

The film, "Someplace With a Mountain" will be shown on March 18 at the National Museum of Natural History. Credit: © Apuur

Semper Fi: Always Faithful exposes the lethal results of water contamination – and coverup – by the U.S. Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Selections from The Science of Healing with Dr. Esther Sternberg investigate the interplay between mind and body in health. Clips from the PBS series, “Designing Healthy Communities” explore the impact of the built environment on health.

The Washington, D.C. premiere of Biophilic Design: The Architecture of Life recommends ways to creating healthy habitats for humans.

The health and economic effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are examined in The Big Fix and Beyond Pollution while the environmental impact of Alberta’s tar sands and the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline are explored in Dirty Oil and Pipe Dreams. The decade-long battle over a proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound is documented in Cape Spin: An American Power Struggle.

The United States premiere of La Clé des Champs (The Field of Enchantment), a French film by the directors of the multi-award winning Microcosmos, spotlights the wonders of nature through close-up photography. Pioneering filmmaker Perry Miller Adato presents her latest film, Paris: The Luminous Years. Indie animator Bill Plympton screens two new animations along with a series of his classics. The world premiere of Bones of Turkana illuminates the life of paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey.

Someplace with a Mountain, The Hungry Tide and There Once Was An Island put a human face on climate change, showing how rising sea levels are threatening the survival of low-lying Pacific islands. The world premiere of Shattered Sky contrasts the lack of progress on climate change with the decisive action on the ozone layer 30 year ago.

The meaning of the organic food label, the disastrous introduction of cane toads into Australia, the Himalayan mountain kingdom of Bhutan, the future of the electric car, the story of eco-pirate Paul Watson and the dangers of nuclear power, are among additional topics explored in the 2012 Festival. Winners from the 2011 Jackson Hole Wildlife Festival will also be shown.

The world premiere of "California Forever: The Story of California State Parks" will be shown on March 18 at the National Museum of American History. Credit: © Backcountry Pictures

Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2012, the Environmental Film Festival has become the leading showcase for environmental films in the United States. Presented in collaboration with more than 100 local, national and global organizations, the Festival is one of the largest cooperative cultural events in the nation’s capital. Films are screened at over 60 venues throughout the Washington metropolitan area, including museums, embassies, libraries, universities and local theaters. Most screenings are free.

For a complete schedule, visit the Festival website, www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org.