April 24, 2008
Seeing green at Hazel Wolf Film Fest
Imagine you’re a professional kayaker, and you’re also into protecting the environment. You line up a friend who’s also a kayaker, and the two of you get an old Japanese fire truck which you convert to run on biodiesel. Not only that, but you create a biodiesel processing facility right on the truck. Then you and your friend drive from Alaska to Argentina in the truck, making your own biodiesel fuel and stopping at rivers to kayak along the way.
That’s the improbable setup for the opening film in the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival, slated for May 1 to 4 in Johnson Hall. Called Oil + Water, the film runs about an hour and will be followed by a Q&A with one of the kayaker/filmmakers, Seth Warren. Warren will be joined by Martha Groom, professor of interdisciplinary arts & sciences at the UW Bothell.
“I think it’s a high-energy way to start the festival,” said David Atcheson, co-chair of the event and a part time-staffer at the University. His job here is to help maintain and redesign the College of Engineering Web site, but he’s a regular volunteer for environmental organizations, including the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Network, which produces the festival.
Oil + Water, slated for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 1, in the Johnson Hall Auditorium, is only the beginning for the four-day festival, which includes visits by about a dozen filmmakers. At the same time and place on Friday night, Everything’s Cool, directed by Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand, will be presented. Helfand, already noted for a film about toxics called Blue Vinyl, will also be on hand to answer questions. Everything’s Cool is about global warming, but it’s not about the science.
“It’s about climate change messaging and how the American public finally got over the hurdles and accepted that this was really happening and a big concern,” Atcheson said.
On Saturday night, Alex Steffen, whose Web site, www.worldchanging.com is one of the most heavily traveled sustainability sites, will give a keynote talk at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium. He is the editor of a book, Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century, that won a Green Prize for sustainable literature. The talk will be followed by Renewal, a film about how various faiths are engaging on the environment.
The last two films to be shown will send festival-goers out with plenty of food for thought. Woven Ways, slated for 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 4, is about uranium mining and its effect on the Navajo. The filmmaker, Linda Helm Krapf, will answer questions, and Deb Abrahamson, a Spokane tribal activist, will speak. The Spokane reservation also has a legacy of uranium mining.
Finally, When Clouds Clear, scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday, is about a small village in Ecuador that’s surrounded by lands that are rich in copper. An international mining company would like to access that copper, but it means hundreds of families would have to be relocated and the villagers have said no. One of the two director/producers, Danielle Bernstein, will attend.
Groom is not the only UW expert who will be contributing to the proceedings. Diana Gale, senior lecturer at the Evans School of Public Affairs and former director of Seattle Public Utilities, will be commenting on several films about water, including The Water Front, which tells the story of a Detroit suburb that found many of its citizens shut off after outside consultants begin running the water utility like a business. That program is at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Biology Professor Joseph Ammirati will be lending his expertise to a film about fungi, slated for a family-friendly sesssion beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday, and Forest Resources Professor John Marzluff will comment on a film about urban wildlife showing at 10 a.m. Sunday. Members of Engineers Without Borders will participate in a session with films on appropriate technology at 2 p.m. Saturday.
This is the 10th year for the film festival, which started at the Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat in Leavenworth. Founded by environmental filmmaker John de Graaf and environmentalist and owner of the Sleeping Lady Harriet Bullitt, it was first known as the Equinox Festival. The name was changed to honor environmental activist Hazel Wolf after her death.
Atcheson became involved with the film network three years ago, and also co-chaired last year’s festival, which was the first on campus.
“I do it because it’s really rewarding to see the connections that are made,” he said. “For example, Chris Morgan, co-director of the Grizzly Bear Outreach Project, came to our festival a couple of years and ended up talking to a producer, Chris Palmer, about the idea of an around-the-world travel adventure studying bears on various continents and turning it into a film called BEARTREK. And that project is now off and running.”
But for the nonfilmmaker, he says, the festival is simply a chance to better understand environmental challenges and to be inspired by stories of activists all over the world working for solutions.
A full schedule for the festival is posted at www.hazelfilm.org. Advance tickets, available on the site, are $5–10 for individual sessions or $60 for a full-festival pass ($40 for students). Tickets will also be available at the door, although popular sessions sometimes sell out.
