Film Series Scheduling

All films will be held in room W2-62.  You can also use the personal scheduler to add film screenings to your conference itinerary.

Sunday, May 4

5:15 – 7:00pm

Arid Lands

Marked by conflicting perceptions of wilderness and nature, Arid Lands is a moving and complex essay on a unique landscape of the American West. It is a documentary feature about the land and people of the Columbia Basin in southeastern Washington state. Sixty years ago, the Hanford nuclear site produced plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Today, it is the focus of the largest environmental cleanup in history. Arid Lands takes us into a world of sports fishermen, tattoo artists, housing developers, ecologists, and radiation scientists living and working in the area. It tells the story of how people changed the landscape over time, and how the landscape affected their lives.

Monday, May 5

1:15 – 2:30pm

Edens Lost and Found – Chicago: City of the Big Shoulders

Edens Lost & Found tells Chicago's story by threading together the stories of a diverse group of its active and committed citizens including volunteers, professionals, students and community leaders -- among them, the city's mayor, Richard M. Daley. During his tenure, Chicago made a powerful commitment to open space with the creation of the 24-acre Millennium Park built atop a parking garage in the heart of downtown. The city has also become a laboratory for green architecture with the award-winning City Hall Roof Garden and Green Roof Initiative. Whole neighborhoods are getting involved in the effort to create more livable communities.

2:45 – 4:00pm

Where Do the Children Play?

Using the adage that children represent 20 percent of the world's population but 100 percent of its future, this film opens by examining differences between growing up today, with all its inherent obstacles and temptations, and childhood as it was lived 50 years ago. Where Do the Children Play? examines how restrictive patterns of sprawl, congestion, and endless suburban development across America are impacting children's mental and physical health and development. Finally, the film examines the impact of the media and stranger-danger television stories. But it also looks at the role of parents themselves, specifically to the over-programmed child of professionals who run their child’s life as if it were a business.

Tuesday, May 6

9:30 – 10:45am

America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie

With beautiful cinematography and enlightening interviews, this film tells the rich and complex story of one of the most astonishing alterations of nature in human history. Prior to Euro-American settlement in the 1820s, one of the major landscape features of North America was 240 million acres of tallgrass prairie. But between 1830 and 1900 - in the span of a single lifetime - the prairie was steadily transformed to farmland. America’s Lost Landscape examines the record of human struggle, triumph, and defeat that prairie history exemplifies, including the history and culture of America’s aboriginal inhabitants. The film also highlights prairie preservation efforts and explores how the tallgrass prairie ecosystem may serve as a model for a sustainable agriculture of the future.

11:00 – 12:15pm

Garbage: The Revolution Begins at Home

Garbage looks at how the family household has become one of the most ferocious environmental predators of our time. In this film an average urban family is asked to keep every scrap of garbage that they create for three months. The McDonalds are taken on a journey to find out where it all goes and its impact on the world.  A must see, this film is revealing and inspiring.

1:15 – 2:30pm

The Return of the Cuyahoga

This film gives a fascinating look at the life, death and rebirth of one of America’s most polluted rivers. Best known as “the river that burned,” the Cuyahoga is, in fact, an emblematic waterway. Its history is the history of the American frontier, the rise of industry, and the scourge of pollution. In 1969, when the river caught fire, the blaze ignited a political movement that restored the Cuyahoga and its communities, and lit the way for America’s environmental movement.

2:45 – 4:00pm

Double Feature

Gimme Green

Gimme Green is a humorous look at the American obsession with the residential lawn and the effects it has on our environment, our wallets and our outlook on life. It's estimated that Americans use approximately 50 percent of their household water on their yards. By examining the social, commercial, and environmental pressures surrounding the green grass aesthetic, we begin to understand how a non-edible, resource-intensive plant could become our nation's largest irrigated crop. Spanning a wide range of perspectives and locales, and employing an engaging blend of gravity and levity, this documentary short examines Americans' true motives for maintaining a lush green lawn in their yards.

Secret World of Gardens: Honeybees

With their intricate dance of communication, their flight patterns requiring sophisticated navigation and their prolific pollen gathering abilities, honeybees are some of the most active and mysterious creatures in the garden. With extraordinary cinematography this film explores the role of honeybees in a common garden and even goes inside the hive for a close-up look.

Wednesday, May 7

9:00 – 10:15am

Designing a Great Neighborhood

Designing a Great Neighborhood follows the progress of the Wild Sage Cohousing Community project, where future residents participate in the design of their own neighborhood. The stated architectural goal at the Wild Sage site in Boulder is a "zero emissions" neighborhood in which solar energy, energy efficiency, and changes in behavior eliminate the need for fossil fuels. The master site developer, The Boulder Housing Partners (BHP), has a vision for creating affordable neighborhoods that are also lively, efficient and pedestrian friendly. More than 400 people with low and middle incomes will live at Holiday, many as first-time homeowners.

10:30 – 11:45am

Double Feature

Edens Lost and Found – Philadelphia: The Holy Experiment

Philadelphia is a historic city responding to many challenges, including suburban development that threatens to decimate the core city. Faced with severe budget limitations (a universal reality), it created a vast network of community-based volunteer organizations who have brought about rebirth through volunteerism and community outreach. Some of those organizations include The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, The New Kensington Community Development Corporation and The Philadelphia Water Department. City government hasn't been sitting still, either. Mayor John F. Street created the Neighborhood Transition Initiative (NTI) program assigning it to come up with practical and affordable solutions to remove blight, promote quality restoration, stimulate investment in new housing, and improve how the city delivers services to its businesses and residents.

Our Land, Our Legacy

This video showcases three successful revitalization projects at RCRA sites: BP Casper, Wyoming, Atlantic Station, Atlanta, GA and the Riverfront, Omaha, Nebraska.