Environmental Film Festival over IAP 2007

Free screening of films focusing on the environment, technology, and humanity over MIT's Independent Activities Period (IAP). Every Tuesday and Thursday evening from January 16, and on February 2 & 3, we'll show a film and give space for discussion. Dinner will be provided, and the screenings are open to the general public. All films will be screened at the Stata Center, in room 32-124.

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TUESDAY & THURSDAY SCREENINGS Dinner is served at 6:00pm, and the films will begin at 6:30pm.

Jan 16, Tue

Water Warriors - While corporations urge local governments to privatize municipal water systems, communities around the world organize to ensure affordable access to this life sustaining resource. Water Warriors is the story of one community’s determination to fight the seemingly inevitable path of water privatization.

A Drop of Life - About two women, one Indian woman and one American, and the convergence of their shared struggle to save the world’s drinking water.

Jan 18, Thu

The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa (25 min) - The photo-documentary report exposes the ugly underbelly of what is thought to be an escalating global trade in toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap collected in North America and Europe and sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers. Produced by the Basel Action Network.

Exporting Harm: The High-tech Trashing of Asia (25 min) - A documentary on the dumping of toxic computer wastes to China that continues to open peoples' eyes to the true horror of the high-tech revolution. Produced by the Basel Action Network.

Jan 23, Tue

Being Caribou (72 min) - Environmentalist Leanne Allison and wildlife biologist Karsten Heuer follow a herd of 120,000 caribou on foot, across 1,500 kilometres of rugged Arctic tundra. The husband-and-wife team wants to raise awareness of threats to the caribou's survival.

Jan 25, Thu

Ecological Design: Inventing the Future (64 min) - This video illuminates the emergence of ecological design in the twentieth century. Beginning with the work of Buckminster Fuller, from the 1920s through the 1960s.

Jan 30, Tue

Is God Green? (60 min) - A new holy war is growing within the conservative evangelical community, with implications for both the global environment and American politics. For years, liberal Christians and others have made protection of the environment a moral commitment. Now, a number of conservative evangelicals are joining the fight, arguing that man's stewardship of the planet is a biblical imperative and calling for action to stop global warming.

Feb 1, Thu

Total Denial (74 min) - The story of the construction of the UNOCAL/TOTAL oil pipeline in Burma. An unprecedented legal battle will unfold in a US courtroom, shocking the world with its revelations. Fifteen plaintiffs who've never left the Burmese jungle will battle head-to-head with two corporate giants. The outcome of this struggle will profoundly affect the actions of corporations worldwide.

DOUBLE FEATURE FILMS: Films will begin at 5:00pm and 6:30pm, dinner will be served in between at 6:00pm.

Feb 2, Fri

5:00pm - Dying to Breathe: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in South Africa A documentary about why the lives of ordinary people living in Sasolburg and South Durban have become a daily struggle for health because of excessively high levels of air pollution.

6:30pm - Shipbreakers (42 min) Welcome to Alang, India, the site of a gargantuan scrap yard where oceangoing ships come to die. Forty thousand Indians live and work here, dismembering and scavenging the hulks of 400 vessels every year.

Feb 3, Sat

5:00pm - Maquila: A Tale of Two Mexicos (55 min) The film examines the impact of corporate globalization on Mexico, focusing on the maquiladoras, U.S.-owned factories employing cheap Mexican labor.

6:30pm - The Charcoal People (68 min) This film by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Nigel Noble documents the workaday lives of Brazilian peasants who cut down trees in the Amazon rain forest and burn the wood in earthen kilns to make charcoal, an essential ingredient for the manufacture of pig iron in the U.S.

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Sponsors:

• Students for Global Sustainability
• The MIT Chapter of Student Pugwash USA
• Department of Urban Studies and Planning
• Association For India's Development (AID) Boston-MIT Chapter
• Groundwork USA
• GSC Funding Board

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