The Green Blog Network: Green Films: East Coast To West Coast

TORONTO, ONTARIO - WindFall - Real to Reel - World Premiere (acquisition title)

Wind power... it's sustainable ... it limits our dependence on foreign oil...it produces no air pollution. Who could object to wind energy? That's what the people of Meredith, NY first thought when a shadowy wind developer looked to supplement the rural farm town's failing economy with a wind energy farm -- that of 40 industrial wind turbines. WINDFALL, Laura Israel's probing feature-length film, documents how this proposal brutally divides Meredith's residents, as they fight over the future of their community. Attracted at first to the financial incentives that would seemingly boost their dying economy; the townspeople grow increasingly alarmed as they discover that the 400-foot high, windmills slated for Meredith are far from a renewable energy source. Hauntingly filmed, WINDFALL exposes the dark side of wind energy development and the unforeseen consequences of "progress".

Making her directorial debut after years of experience as a film editor - most notably with such individualists as Robert Frank (True Story) and John Lurie (Fishing with John) - Laura Israel brings her own distinctive approach to WINDFALL, paying careful attention to visual detail and sound design and bringing freshness and vitality to the much debated topic of renewable energy.

Screenings:

Premiere - Friday, September 10 at 6:00pm - AMC 9

Press & Industry 1 - Saturday, September 11 at 2:00pm - Scotiabank Theater 9

Public Screening 2 - Sunday, September 12 at 9:15am - AMC10

Press & Industry 2 - Wednesday, September 15 at 7:30pm - Scotiabank Theater 4

Public Screening 3 - Sunday September 19 at 10:15am - AMC10

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Sundance Institute today announced a special collaborative project with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation designed to harness the power of film to create communities and inspire action on issues related to global health, poverty and education. Six short documentary films commissioned by the Institute's Documentary Film Program from award-winning filmmakers Glenn Baker, Teboho Edkins, Mark Monroe, Maren Grainger-Monsen, MD, Nicole Newnham, Jonathan Stack, Ricki Stern, and Annie Sundberg, will become part of a multi-platform communications initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which plans to share the films online and at speeches and public events around the world.

Excerpts from selected films will first premiere September 20, 2010 as part of TEDxChange, a live event convened by Melinda French Gates, to mark the 10th anniversary of the creation of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals to improve social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries. TEDxChange will look at what advancements have been made since the U.N. adopted its Millennium Goals, and what needs to happen to ensure success for the future. Hosted by TED Curator Chris Anderson at the Paley Center for Media in New York and simulcast in Los Angeles, the 90-minute event will stream live on TED.com and www.tedxchange.org at 11a.m. EDT, with simultaneous satellite events planned in over 50 other communities around the world.

Moving Image Film Festival - Marin County, California October, 2010
The Bioneers 21st Annual Conference is a leading-edge environmental conference in San Rafael, California, October 15-17th where social and scientific innovators focus on breakthrough solutions to restore people and planet. Since environmental and social justice themed films have gone mainstream, receiving both commercial and critical recognition, cinema has become one of the most important ways to ignite dialogue and inspire action on the most pressing issues of our time.
Included in this extended series is Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist. October 12, 2010. This feature documentary shows Peter Jay Brown http://www.peterjaybrown.com/ (from Animal Planet’s Whale Wars) in his shipboard life with self-proclaimed animal saviors and sea rebels who shaped the green movement as it is today by performing extraordinary feats of daring on the high seas. Their fleet of ramming vessels inflicts damage to whalers, illegal drift-netters, & seal hunters that operate illegally world-wide while engaging in action packed conflict including sinkings, boardings, arrests, and rammings. These activists have dedicated their lives to a series of inspiring campaigns to halt the atrocities committed worldwide against sea mammals.

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