Poster and Video Contest
Design the EFFY Poster and Promo Video
Promotional Video: Direct and edit an effective, eye-catching, and informational promotional video for the 2011 Environmental Film Festival at Yale. This video will be distributed online via e-mail to thousands of people and will also be featured on the EFFY website in the months prior to the film festival.
Poster: Your goal is to design the official poster for the 2012 Environmental Film Festival at Yale. The winning poster will be displayed both physically and electronically across the Yale campus and to the entire New Haven community.
RULES
Promotional Video:
• The video must have a running time of two minutes or less.
• The video must include the EFFY logo, the dates of the festival (April 9-15, 2012), and the website (environment.yale.edu/film).
• Submit the video (along with the entry form) as a high-quality Quicktime .mov file on a data DVD to the following address by 5pm on January 6, 2012: Environmental Film Festival at Yale, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511
• On the DVD/CD, write your name, the title of the promo, and your contact information.
Poster:
• The poster must have a resolution that is printable for up to 18x24 in.
• There are no color restrictions.
• You must include the EFFY logo (download here), the dates of the festival (April 9-15, 2012), and the website (environment.yale.edu/film).
• Submit the design along with the entry form as a full-resolution file on a data CD to the following address by 5pm on January 6, 2012: Environmental Film Festival at Yale, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511
RESOURCES
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Posters from Past Years
EFFY 2011 Winners
The 3rd Annual Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY) has announced the 2011 award winners. THE CITY DARK, directed by Ian Cheney, takes home the top juried prize for a feature film. The jury, comprised of Yale students and faculty, awarded TRANSITION TOWN TOTNES the top honor for a short film. The EFFY Audience Award, as determined by ballots distributed to filmgoers, was tied between WASTE LAND and YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip.
The student-run film festival, housed within the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, showcased 8 feature films and 9 shorts from March 28 to April 3 and hosted a record number of attendees from across the state and nation.
The documentary THE CITY DARK (East Coast Premiere), explores the psychological, societal, and environmental implications of light pollution.
TRANSITION TOWN TOTNES, directed by Deborah Koons Garcia, highlights the growing movement of one transition town in Totnes, England, where citizens are engaging in community-based organizing to live more sustainably.
WASTE LAND, a moving documentary about the population who lives off of the largest landfill in the world, was accompanied by a talk with one of the film’s stars Tiaõ Santos, President of ACAMJG (the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho) of Brazil. “It is a great festival,” said Tiaõ. “I was honored to be part of it and hope it is only the beginning of a long time relationship of the Brazilian pickers of Recyclable Material and Yale.”
YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip, a documentary about 3 twenty-somethings barreling across all 50 states in 52 weeks in search of local solutions to climate change, world premiered at EFFY.
Other highlights of the festival included EFFY After Dark, a party to celebrate the world premiere of YERT, a special screening of the 2011 Academy Award-nominated short documentary THE WARRIORS OF QUIGANG: A Chinese Village Strikes Back, and a special advanced screening of Disneynature’s AFRICAN CATS (which releases nation-wide April 22, 2011).
“The films in our line up this year highlight the variety of emotions we experience when we think about our planet and its future: hope as well as devastation, awe as well as caution,” says Catherine Fontana, Director of Public Affairs. “Even though the 2011 festival is over, the fight for our planet’s future endures.”
Major sponsors of the 2011 festival include The Study at Yale Hotel, alumnus Adam Wolfensohn, Films at the Whitney, School of Forestry 1980 Fund, Graduate and Professional Student Senate at Yale, Yale Environment 360, ecosystem Notebooks, 360 State Street, and Blue State Coffee.
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Queen of the Sun
QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis from Taggart Siegel, director of THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN. Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this engaging and ultimately uplifting film weaves an unusual and dramatic story of the heartfelt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers from around the world including Michael Pollan, Gunther Hauk and Vandana Shiva. Together they reveal both the problems and the solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature.
Discussion to follow moderated by Sir Peter Crane, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, with filmmaker Taggart Siegel and Dr. Nancy Moran, Yale Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
About the Filmmaker
An independent filmmaker since the mid-1980’s, Taggart Siegel is best known as the director of the 2006 grass-roots hit THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN. This critically acclaimed feature documentary about a maverick visionary farmer, won 31 international film festivals awards and was released theatrically around the world. Siegel is also known for his award-winning films THE SPLIT HORN: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America, BETWEEN TWO WORLDS and BLUE COLLAR A BUDDHA which capture the struggle of refugees in America. He is the co-founder of Collective Eye, Inc., a non-profit media production and distribution organization based in Portland, Oregon and San Francisco.
Preceded by: Transition Town Totnes
Introduced by filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia.
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Genre: Documentary
Year: 2010
Running Time: 83 Minutes
Website: www.queenofthesun.com
Director: Taggart Siegel
Producers: Taggart Siegel, Jon Betz
Editors: Jon Betz / Taggart Siegel
Director of Photography: Taggart Siegel
Associate Producers: Donald Siegel, Eric Stolberg, George Mitchell, Mike Quinn
African Cats
Special Advance Screening
An epic true story set against the backdrop of one of the wildest places on Earth, “African Cats” captures the real-life love, humor and determination of the majestic kings of the savanna. The story features Mara, an endearing lion cub who strives to grow up with her mother’s strength, spirit and wisdom; Sita, a fearless cheetah and single mother of five mischievous newborns; and Fang, a proud leader of the pride who must defend his family from a once banished lion. Disneynature brings “The Lion King” to life on the big screen in this True Life Adventure directed by Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill (“Earth”). An awe-inspiring adventure blending family bonds with the power and cunning of the wild, “African Cats” leaps into theatres worldwide beginning on Earth Day 2011. For more information about the movie and the “See ‘African Cats,’ Save the Savanna” initiative, check out Disney.com/AfricanCats.
Question and Answer session to follow with Mary Wykstra of Action for Cheetahs Kenya and Paul Thomson of Ewaso Lions Project.
About DisneyNature
Disneynature, the first new Disney-branded film label from The Walt Disney Studios in more than 60 years, was launched in April 2008 to bring the world’s top nature filmmakers together to share a wide variety of wildlife subjects and stories with theatrical audiences. “Earth” (opening Earth Day 2009) was the first film to premiere domestically under the new label, and garnered a record-breaking opening weekend for a nature documentary. Its “Buy a Ticket, Plant a Tree” initiative led to the planting of 2.7 million trees in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Hitting theaters on April 22, 2010, “Oceans” was the third highest grossing feature-length nature film in history. Its “See ‘Oceans,’ Save Oceans” initiative helped establish 40,000 acres of marine protected area in The Bahamas, preserving essential coral reefs. Walt Disney was a pioneer in wildlife documentary filmmaking, producing 13 True-Life Adventure motion pictures between 1949 and 1960, which earned eight Academy Awards®. For more information about Disneynature, check out disneynature.com like us on Facebook: facebook.com/Disneynature, and follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/Disneynature. For more information about the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, please visit Disney.com/conservation.
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Rated G
Genre: Documentary
Year: 2011
Running Time: 90 minutes
Website: Disney.com/AfricanCats
Narrator: Samuel L. Jackson
Directors: Keith Scholey, Alastair Fothergill
Producers: Keith Scholey, Alix Tidmarsh
EFFY After Dark
Join us in celebrating the world premiere of YERT with live music, short films and drinks specials. No cover/open to the public/21+.
Venue: GPSCY bar, 204 York St., 2nd floor ballroom
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YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip
World Premiere
YERT is a groundbreaking adventure and a celebration of the American spirit in the face of adversity - a thought-provoking, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious, documentary about the courageous and creative individuals, groups, businesses and leaders of this country who are tackling the greatest environmental threats in history. Called into action by the ever increasing threats of planetary catastrophe (from climate change to toxic pollution, from water scarcity to habitat destruction), Mark Dixon, Ben Evans, and Julie Dingman Evans upended their lives, pooled collective life-savings, and set off on a first-of-its-kind, 50-state, year-long journey of discovery to personalize sustainability and to answer a critical question: Are we doomed?
Discussion to follow with filmmakers Mark Dixon, Ben Evans, and Julie Dingman Evans. Moderated by Matthew Eckelman, Lecturer and Associate Research Scientist at Yale.
About the Filmmakers
Ben Evans, Director/Producer of YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip
Ben graduated from Stanford University in 1994 with a BS in Science, Technology, and Society...at least that's what he tells his family. After working as an actor for a decade in LA and NYC, Ben found himself looking for a way to marry his creative urges with his abiding passion for the environment and a growing concern about the future. Looking for adventure and a sense of greater purpose, Ben launched YERT in 2006 with his college buddy, Mark Dixon, and convinced his exceedingly understanding wife, Julie, to join him. After far too much time in an editing cave and well aware that one good four letter word deserves another, he is elated to be premiering YERT at EFFY. This is his first feature film.
Mark Dixon, Producer/Director of YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip
Mark attended Stanford University and graduated in 1997 with a BS in Industrial Engineering. While familiarizing himself with web and media technologies during a 10 year career in Silicon Valley, Mark discovered that our planet Earth was having a tough time accommodating her most dominant species. He also realized that a sound retirement plan would optimally include a stable planet. In an attempt to address these concerns (not to mention an itch to see the country), he went on to launch YERT in 2006 with his college buddy, Ben Evans. Now, approximately 54 months later, he is thrilled to see the world premiere of the YERT feature film at EFFY. This is his first feature film.
Preceded by: Wee Wise Words
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Genre: Documentary
Year: 2011
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Website: www.yert.com
Director: Ben Evans and Mark Dixon
Producers: Mark Dixon, Ben Evans
Co-Producer: Gill Holland, Scott Irick
Editors: Ben Evans, Scott Irick
Cinematography: Ben Evans, Mark Dixon, Julie Evans, Erika Bowman
Associate Producers: Scott Irick, Richard Citrin, Sheila Collins
Short Films
Warriors of Qiugang
USA/China, 39 min. This 2011 Oscar-nominated film, shot in China over three years, chronicles how one Chinese village stood up against a polluting chemical plant. 2011 Academy Award-nominated documentary co-produced by Yale Environment 360 and filmmakers Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon.
When the Water Ends
USA, 16 min.The film tells the story of conflict between tribal groups in Kenya and Ethiopa over water and land, and the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of East Africa. Produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm, Directed by Evan Abramson.
preceded by:
11 Degrees
Scotland, 8 min. A film about the struggle of a Scottish ski resort to adapt to the consequences of the climate change and the decrease in skiers. Directed by Anna Ewert.
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Bag It
BAG IT follows Jeb Berrier, an average American guy who is admittedly not a “tree hugger,” who makes a pledge to stop using plastic bags. This simple action gets Jeb thinking about all kinds of plastic as he embarks on a global tour to unravel the complexities of our plastic world. When Jeb’s journey takes a personal twist, we see how our crazy-for-plastic world has finally caught up to us and what we can do about it. Today. Right now.
The film examines our society’s use and abuse of plastic. The film focuses on plastic as it relates to our society’s throwaway mentality, our culture of convenience, our over consumption of unnecessary, disposable products and packaging—things that we use one time and then, without another thought, throw them away. Where is AWAY?? Away is over flowing landfills, clogged rivers, islands of trash in our oceans, and even our very own toxic bodies. Jeb travels the globe on a fact-finding mission—not realizing that after his simple resolution, plastic will never look the same again!
Discussion to follow with author, researcher & publisher Dan Imhoff, and artist & activist Liz Milwe. Moderated by John Wargo, Professor of Risk Analysis, Environmental Policy, and Political Science.
About the Filmmaker
Born in Jamaica and raised in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, Suzan Beraza’s thought-provoking films challenge viewers to examine their lives and consider the impact of their choices. Social and environmental issues pervade her work. Her films have appeared on PBS, and at many festivals, winning top awards at Worldfest, Montreal Film Festival, San Luis Obispo Film Festival, EarthVision, and Mountainfilm in Telluride Film Festival. Documentaries she has worked on have also won three Telly Awards, including Best Documentary.
Preceded by: The Majestic Plastic Bag
4 minutes. A humorous mockumentary about a plastic bag’s migration to its “home” in the Pacific Garbage Patch. Narrated by Jeremy Irons. It was produced by Heal The Bay to help put an end plastic pollution.
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Genre: Documentary
Year: 2010
Running Time: 78 minutes
Website: www.bagitmovie.com
Director: Susan Beraza
Producers: Michelle Hill, Susan Beraza
Editor: Casey Nay
Director of Photography: Leigh Reagan
Executive Producers: Judith Kohin
If A Tree Falls
East Coast Premiere
In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front-- a group the FBI has called America’s “number one domestic terrorism threat.” For years, the ELF—operating in separate anonymous cells without any central leadership—had launched spectacular arsons against dozens of businesses they accused of destroying the environment: timber companies, SUV dealerships, wild horse slaughterhouses, and a $12 million ski lodge at Vail, Colorado. With the arrest of Daniel and thirteen others, the government had cracked what was probably the largest ELF cell in America and brought down the group responsible for the very first ELF arsons in this country.
IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of this ELF cell, by focusing on the transformation and radicalization of one of its members. Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-and-robbers thriller, the film interweaves a verite chronicle of Daniel on house arrest as he faces life in prison, with a dramatic recounting of the events that led to his involvement with the group. And along the way it asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and the way we define terrorism.
Drawing from striking archival footage -- much of it never before seen -- and intimate interviews with ELF members, and with the prosecutor and detective who were chasing them, IF A TREE FALLS explores the tumultuous period from 1995 until early 2001 when environmentalists were clashing with timber companies and law enforcement, and the word “terrorism” had not yet been altered by 9/11.
Discussion to follow with filmmakers Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman. Moderated by Aliya Haq, Yale Masters student and former Greenpeace Organizing Manager.
About the Filmmaker
Marshall Curry got his start shooting, directing, and editing the documentary, STREET FIGHT, which followed Cory Booker’s first run for mayor of Newark, NJ and was nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy. After STREET FIGHT, Curry was the Director and Producer, as well as one of the Directors of Photography and Editors of the feature documentary, RACING DREAMS.
In 2005 Marshall was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of "25 New Faces of Independent Film", and he was awarded the International Documentary Association (IDA) Jacqueline Donnet Filmmaker Award. In 2007 he received the International Trailblazer Award at MIPDOC in Cannes.
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Genre: Documentary
Year: 2010
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Website: www.ifatreefallsfilm.com
Director: Marshall Curry
Co-director: Sam Cullman
Producers: Marshall Curry, Sam Cullman
Editor: Matthew Hamachek, Marshall Curry
Director of Photography: Sam Cullman
Executive Producer: Stephen Bannatyne
The City Dark
East Coast Premiere
THE CITY DARK chronicles the disappearance of darkness. When filmmaker Ian Cheney (director of KING CORN) moves to New York City and discovers skies almost completely devoid of stars, a simple question – what do we lose, when we lost the night? – spawns a journey to America’s brightest and darkest corners. Astronomers, cancer researchers, ecologists and philosophers provide glimpses of what is lost in the glare of city lights; blending a humorous, searching tone with poetic footage of the night sky, what unravels is an introduction to the science of the dark, and an exploration of the human relationship to the stars.
Discussion to follow with director Ian Cheney, author & inventor Bob Crelin, epidemiologist Richard Stevens, and Robert Zinn, Yale Professor of Astronomy. Moderated by Michael Faison, Director of Yale University’s Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium.
About the Filmmaker
Ian Cheney is a Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker. He grew up in New England, co-created and starred in the feature documentary KING CORN, directed THE GREENING OF SOUTHIE and the upcoming feature documentary THE CITY DARK. He currently leads Wicked Delicate, a documentary and advocacy project in Brooklyn, runs the TRUCK FARM project, and is one of the founders of FOOD CORPS. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
Preceded by: The Herd
Ireland, 4 min. Directed by Ken Wardrop. A farmer finds a deer befriending his herd of cattle.
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Genre: Documentary
Year: 2010
Running Time: 84 minutes
Website: www.thecitydark.com
Director: Ian Cheney
Producer: Ian Cheney
Editors: Ian Cheney, Frederick Shanahan
Director of Photography: Taylor Gentry
Filmmaking Workshop with Ian Cheney
Special Event
Join award-winning filmmaker Ian Cheney, as he shares film cips, stories from the field, and practical advice on making films. Topics covered include tips for funding, shooting, and finishing an independent documentary and the role of documentary storytelling in environmental advocacy and education.
Free and open to the public. RSVP required at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
About Ian Cheney
Ian Cheney is a Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker. He grew up in New England, co-created and starred in the feature documentary KING CORN, directed THE GREENING OF SOUTHIE and the upcoming feature documentary THE CITY DARK. He currently leads Wicked Delicate, a documentary and advocacy project in Brooklyn, runs the TRUCK FARM project, and is one of the founders of FOOD CORPS. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
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Website: www.wickedelicate.com
Connected
East Coast Premiere
Between texts and tweets, memes and microchips, we’ve become conditioned to break the world down into byte-sized bits. In the process we’ve stopped seeing the forest for the trees, never mind the root system that connects them all. In Connected, Tiffany Shlain—award-winning filmmaker and founder of The Webby Awards—sets out to explore these bonds with the help of her father, acclaimed author and thinker Dr. Leonard Shlain. When the unexpected happens during the making of the film, Tiffany is forced to reexamine everything she thought she knew about life, relationships, and connectedness. Tracing interdependence through history, she discovers the surprising links between right brain and left; alphabets and power; honey bees and stress; hormones and happiness; technology and nature; progress and consequences; and parents and children. The result is a personal film with universal resonance that encourages viewers to make connections of their own. Offering an exhilarating stream-of-consciousness ride, Connected is a journey through the interconnectedness of humankind, nature, progress and morality at the dawn of the 21st century. For centuries we’ve been declaring independence. With insight, curiosity, and humor, this film explores whether it’s time to declare our interdependence.
Discussion to follow with director Tiffany Shlain. Moderated by Mary Evelyn Tucker, Senior Lecturer and Senior Scholar at Yale.
About the Filmmaker
Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards, co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences and a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. Her films have been selected by over 100 film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, and Rotterdam, won 20 awards including Audience and Grand Jury Prizes, been translated into 8 languages and been shown at museums including LACMA, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and the Guggenheim. A celebrated thinker and speaker, she has advised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is on the advisory board of M.I.T.'s Geospatial Lab and presented the 2010 Commencement Address at UC Berkeley.
Preceded by: U: Uranium
11 min. Directed by Sarah Del Seronde. A look at the contamination of the waters and health of Native and non-Native communities near the Grand Canyon and across the Southwest as a result of decades of uranium mining and milling.
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Genre: Documentary
Year: 2010
Website: www.connectedthefilm.com
Narrator: Peter Coyote
Director: Tiffany Shlain
Producers: Sasha Lewis & Carlton Evans
Animation: Stefan Nadelman
Composer: Gunnard Doboze
Editors: Tiffany Shlain and Dalan McNabola
Presented by The Moxie Institute and Impact Partners
Waste Land
Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of "catadores" -- self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz's initial objective was to "paint" the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives. Director Lucy Walker (DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND, BLINDSIGHT and COUNTDOWN TO ZERO) and co-directors João Jardim and Karen Harley have great access to the entire process and, in the end, offer stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit. 2011 Academy Award Nominee, winner of the Audience Award World Cinema Documentary, Sundance Film Festival 2010.
Discussion to follow with Tiaõ (Sebastiao Carlos dos Santos), President of ACAMJG (the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho, Brazil, who is featured in the film. Also with Martin Medina, Advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative project on recycling sector in developing countries. Moderated by Paulo Moreira, Assistant Professor of Spanish & Portuguese at Yale.
About Lucy Walker
Lucy Walker uses dramatic filmmaking techniques to make documentary films, following memorable characters on transformative journeys that grant unique access inside closed worlds. Walker's films include DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND, BLINDSIGHT and COUNTDOWN TO ZERO. Walker's credits also include Nickelodeon's "Blue's Clues," for which she was twice nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Direction in a Children's Series, and several award-winning narrative short films. Walker grew up in London, England, won a Fulbright Scholarship to attend New York University's Graduate Film Program, where she earned her MFA.
Preceded by: Life in a Land Fill
1 minute. DIrected by Jack Quinn. An artistic take on the odds and ends found in a landfill.
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Genre: Documentary
Year: 2010
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Website: www.wastelandmovie.com
Director: Lucy Walker
Co-directors: Co-directed by João Jardim and Karen Harley
Producers: Angus Aynsley, Hank Levine
Co-Producer: Peter Martin
Editor: Pedro Kos
Director of Photography: Dudu Miranda
Executive Producers: Fernando Meirelles, Miel de Botton Aynsley, Andrea Barata Ribeiro, Jackie de Botton
Journey of the Universe
Special Pre-Festival Screening and World Premiere
Ask acclaimed author and evolutionary philosopher Brian Thomas Swimme about our role as humans in this awe-inspiring universe, and his insights will light up the night skies.
As our host, co-writer, and fellow traveler, he shares his infectious curiosity about life’s biggest questions in the epic JOURNEY OF THE UNIVERSE. This documentary film project and companion book is a collaboration of Swimme and historian of religions Mary Evelyn Tucker. They weave a tapestry that draws together scientific discoveries in astronomy, geology, biology, ecology, and biodiversity with humanistic insights concerning the nature of the universe.
Using his skills as a masterful storyteller, Swimme connects such big picture issues as the birth of the cosmos 14 billion years ago – to the invisible frontiers of the human genome – as well as to our current impact on Earth’s evolutionary dynamics. Through his engaging and thoughtful observations audiences everywhere will discover the profound role we play in this intricate web of life. From the Big Bang–to the epic impact humans have on the planet today–this film is designed to inspire a new and closer relationship with Earth in a period of growing environmental and social crisis.
Beautifully filmed in high-definition, our grand tour begins on the historically rich Greek island of Samos, birthplace of mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras. Disembarking on the island at dawn, Swimme expertly guides us on an exhilarating trek through time and space, sharing a wondrous view of cosmic evolution as a process based on immense creativity, connection, and interdependence. After the toll of midnight, he sets sail into the star-lit waters of the North Aegean Sea, leaving audiences with a sense of wonder at the mystery, complexity and connectivity that permeates the Earth and universe from the very beginning.
Big science, big history, big story, this one-of-a-kind JOURNEY OF THE UNIVERSE film project has been created by an acclaimed team of internationally-recognized scientists, scholars, and award-winning filmmakers.
SCREENING INFORMATION:
Friday, March 25, 2011 at 7pm, followed by a panel discussion
Burke Auditorium, Kroon Hall, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT
Friday, March 25, 2011 at 7pm
Bowers Auditorium, Sage Hall, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT
Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 1pm
Peabody Museum, 170 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT
Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 5:30pm
Burke Auditorium, Kroon Hall, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT
About the Filmmakers
Mary Evelyn Tucker is a Senior Lecturer and Senior Scholar at Yale University where she has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as well as the Divinity School, the Department of Religious Studies, and the Center for Bioethics. She is a co-founder and co-director with John Grim of the Forum on Religion and Ecology.
Brian Thomas Swimme is a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Oregon in 1978 for work in gravitational dynamics. He brings the context of story to our understanding of the 13.7 billion year trajectory of cosmogenesis. Such a story, he feels, will assist in the emergence of a flourishing Earth community.
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Genre: Documentary
Year: 2011
Running Time: 60 Minutes
Website: www.journeyoftheuniverse.org
Director: David Kennard
Producer: Patsy Northcutt
Co-Producer: Catherine Lynn Butler
Editor: Patsy Northcutt
Director of Photography: Ian Salvage
Executive Producer: Mary Evelyn Tucker
Contact
For questions or to join our mailing list, please email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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Press
Huffington Post (4/8/2011)
YERT Blockbuster: Your Environmental Road Trip Film Wins EFFY 2011 Audience Award: Interview With Filmmakers
Yale Daily News (4/5/2011)
Walsh: A Wider Lens
SustainableFocus.org (4/3/2011)
A Weekend at the Environmental Film Festival at Yale
Yale Daily News (4/1/2011)
The environment and the arts meet, collide & promote social action
The Yale Herald (4/1/2011)
Yale’s Environmental Film Festival
Interview on FoxCT morning news (3/28/2011)
The New Haven Register (3/27/2011)
Reel eco-friendly: EFFY’s slate of award-winning films opens Monday
Segment on Fox 61 Morning News
Feature story in the New Haven Register
Item in the San Francisco Chronicle
Feature story in Yale Daily News
Feature story in New Haven Advocate
Feature story in the Hartford Courant
Feature story in the Yale Bulletin
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WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
"There’s Cannes, Tribeca and Sundance. But only New Haven has EFFY." - New Haven Register
"It’s not that I’m anti-environment, just anti-environmental film.... [EFFY] found at least one convert — mission accomplished." - Yale Daily News
“This has been one of the best festivals I have attended, for its organization, for its execution of its theme, for its welcoming atmosphere for filmmakers, and for the way it expanded on its films with worthwhile panels and Q&A.” - Michael Parfit, Co-Director of Saving Luna
“A roster of movies that would put many longtime festivals to shame.” - New Haven Register
Donate
EFFY was created by students and is run by students, all of whom volunteer their time to make it happen. We rely on financial and in-kind donations to cover expenses and we need your support. Help us ensure that EFFY continues next year and beyond, and that screenings continue to be free to the community. We appreciate any support you can offer!
For information on donating to EFFY, please visit the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies page:
http://environment.yale.edu/giving/
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Awards
The 2011 Grand Jury Prizes (Best Feature & Best Short) were selected by a panel of jurors. The jurors are listed below.
EFFY 2011 Jury Panel
Dr. Nadine Unger, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Nadine Unger is Assistant Professor of Climate Science in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She is a former member of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. In 2004, she directed a production of Waxing West by Romanian playwright Saviana Stanescu performed at International House in New York City. She was a member of The Shakespeare Workshop in New York City between 2004-2008. Performances include Feste in Twelfth Night and Cecile de Volanges in Dangerous Liasons. She is currently developing an outreach theater project about climate change.
Johannes DeYoung, Yale School of Art
Johannes DeYoung is a video artist and Lecturer at the Yale School of Art. His work has been exhibited internationally, with shows in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Melbourne, Australia. Mr. DeYoung received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI.
Rachel Kramer, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Master’s Student
Rachel Kramer is a Masters of Environmental Science candidate at Yale with interests in the social ecology of conservation and development. Rachel recently created a short film for National Wildlife Federation on emerging solutions to deforestation for cattle expansion in the Brazilian Amazon that was selected for screening at the 2010 Cancun Climate & Development Days film festival. Rachel has been featured in the Madagascar episode of the French nature series, "Ushuaia" for her lemur conservation and community development work, and her photography has been published in print and online media including National Geographic NewsWatch and National Wildlife Magazine.
Mike Carroll, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Master’s Student
When he couldn't pull off R-rated cable films at friends' houses as a youth in the 1980s, Mike Carroll watched random movies on local Boston UHF channels 38 and 56, often times on a 12-inch black and white television. As a teenager, it slowly dawned on him that films were seriously worthy things, leading to Peckinpah to Nichols, Kopple to Herzog, and both Andersons to Louis C.K. He is currently enrolled at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies focusing on organizational sustainability management and performs related work at the educational level.
Ritika Tewari, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Doctoral/Post-Doctoral Student
Rikita Tewari is a postgraduate fellow from TERI, India, and brings along the perspectives of the developing world to pressing environmental concerns. Rikita is pursuing Masters in Natural Resources Management back home. Analyzing movies is one of her hobbies, and at EFFY she would be looking at the message each film conveys and how effectively it does so.
Emily Levada, Yale School of Management MBA Student
Emily Levada is a first year MBA student at the Yale School of Management (SOM). Prior to coming to Yale, Emily worked for five years as a production manager at The Studio Theatre in Washington, DC. After first attending the DC Environmental Film Festival a number of years ago, Emily joined an environmental political action committee in DC and spearheaded an environmental awareness initiative at her company. Emily is excited to be promoting both the arts and the environment at Yale through EFFY.
Josh Glick, Film Studies and American Studies PhD Student
Josh Glick is a PhD candidate at Yale in the departments of Film Studies and American Studies. His research interests are focused on documentary media, race and representation in popular culture, and 20th century social movements. Josh is currently co-teaching a seminar on digital documentary and the internet that gives special attention to contemporary politics, activism, and the environment.
Kiku Langford, Yale Divinity School Masters Student
J. Kiku Langford is a first year M.A.R. candidate at Yale Divinity School where she co-leads the student group FERNS (Faith, Ecology, Nature, Religion and Spirituality). She grew up in Tucson, AZ and attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH where she majored in Studio Art. In 2008 she worked for the International Animation Festival in Hiroshima, Japan, and in 2010 she helped to distribute the documentary film "Orgasm Inc," for director Liz Canner. Kiku's future goals include being a mother, having a cow and a farm, and helping to develop farm-to-school programs in New England.
Jennifer Newman, Yale School of Drama Masters Student
Jennifer Newman is a third-year MFA candidate at the Yale School of Drama. Prior to coming to Yale Jennifer performed on Broadway in Disney’s The Lion King and was a Radio City Rockette. She also had the immense pleasure of performing with Michael Jackson at Madison Square Garden. Her love of film dates back to watching West Side Story and Grease, Car Wash and of course Star Wars. The documentary film Baraka changed her life.
Liz Godar, Yale College Student
Liz Godar is a first-year Yale College undergraduate from St. Louis, Missouri. She conducted research on carbon sequestration in Environmental/Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and worked on an award winning environmental documentary entitled Unleaded. As a high school student, she represented the youth of St. Louis in environmental rallies and press conferences, headed political action for St. Louis Interschool Ecological Council, wrote published articles to raise awareness about environmental issues, and led the environmental club at her school in various campaigns. She served as a representative for the U.S. in a State Department sponsored program called Ocean for Life in which she studied ocean science and worked with National Geographic photographers to document themes of ocean diversity, conversation, and education.
Patrick Cage, Yale College Student
Patrick Cage is a freshman Ecology & Evolutionary Biology major and hopes to pursue a career in conservation biology. He is a Pierson College STEP coordinator, working to improve sustainability throughout Yale's undergraduate population, and a member of the Yale Animal Welfare Alliance, as well as a volunteer at the New Haven Police Animal Shelter. Patrick enjoys bicycling as a means of transportation, vegan cooking, and botanizing.
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2011 EFFY AWARD WINNERS
Grand Jury Prize, Feature:
The City Dark, which explores the psychological, societal, and environmental implications of light pollution.
Grand Jury Prize, Short:
Transition Town Totnes, which highlights the growing movement of a sustainable transition town in Englad.
EFFY Audience Award:
A tie between Wateland and YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip. Wasteland is a moving documentary about the population who lives off of the largest landfill in the world. YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip is about three 20-somethings barreling across all 50 states in 52 weeks in search of local solutions to climate change
Sustainability
Not only are we interested in conveying important environmental issues to audiences via the medium of film, but we are dedicated to ensuring that our festival operations are environmentally sustainable and low-impact. We adhere to the Yale Office of Sustainability’s event guidelines, as well as keep track of sustainability efforts to set ever increasing goals for the following year’s festival.
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Sponsors
EFFY is made possible thanks to the generous support of the following sponsors:
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Adam Wolfensohn
Stanley T. Woodward lectureship
Center for Business and the Environment at Yale
Class of 1980 Fund
Paul Joskow
Yale Student Environmental Coalition
Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy
Graduate and Professional Student Senate at Yale (GPSS)
Graduate Student Life @ the McDougal Center
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Speakers
Ian Cheney
Discussing the film The City Dark on Wednesday, March 30, 7:00pm
Ian Cheney grew up in New England and received Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He co-created and starred in the feature documentary KING CORN, and directed the feature documentary THE GREENING OF SOUTHIE. Most recently, Ian directed and produced a feature documentary about light pollution entitled THE CITY DARK, and a short film on urban agriculture entitled TRUCK FARM. With longtime collaborator Curt Ellis, Ian runs Wicked Delicate, a documentary and advocacy project in Brooklyn, NY. Wicked Delicate maintains a 1/1000th acre farm in the back of a 1986 Dodge pickup truck, and is part of a planning process to develop FoodCorps, a national school garden and Farm to School program.
Sir Peter Crane
Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and Professor of Botany.
Discussing the film Queen of the Sun on Sunday, April 3, 6:00pm
Dean Crane’s work focuses on the diversity of plant life: its origin and fossil history, current status, and conservation and use. From 1992 to 1999 he was director of the Field Museum in Chicago with overall responsibility for the museum’s scientific programs. During this time he established the Office of Environmental and Conservation Programs and the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change, which today make up the Division of Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo). From 1999 to 2006 he was director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, one of the largest and most influential botanical gardens in the world. His tenure at Kew saw strengthening and expansion of the gardens’ scientific, conservation, and public programs. Dean Crane was elected to the Royal Society (the U.K. academy of sciences) in 1998. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a member of the German Academy Leopoldina. He was knighted in the U.K. for services to horticulture and conservation in 2004. Dean Crane currently serves on the Board of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas, and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.
Bob Crelin
Discussing the film The City Dark on Wednesday, March 30, 7:00pm
Author and inventor Bob Crelin has shapedlight pollution legislation in Connecticut at the state and local level. Bob is the co-founder of Lighting by Branford, which manufactures the GlareBuster—an an award-winning "dark sky" floodlight. He has also written two children's books, "There Once Was a Sky Full of Stars," and “Faces of the Moon,” in an effort to educate the next generation about the beauty of the night sky.In 2004, Bob was honored with the Astronomical League’s Walter Scott Houston Award for his years of devotion to working to preserve the night sky for our children.
Sam Cullman
Discussing the film If A Tree Falls on Thursday, March 31, 7:00pm
Sam Cullman is currently producing and shooting a documentary about the War on Drugs in America, directed by Eugene Jarecki, and is starting post-production on BLACK CHEROKEE, a short he co-directed with Benjamin Rosen about a self-taught New York City street artist. Cullman's camera credits have included Eugene Jarecki's WHY WE FIGHT (2005), which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in documentary; director Rob Van Alkemade and producer Morgan Spurlock's WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY? (2007); directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin's KAMP KATRINA (2007); Jonathan Stack's LOCKUP: INSIDE ANGOLA (2008) and THE FARM: 10 DOWN (2009), both follow-ups to Stacks' THE FARM: ANGOLA, USA (1998). His cinematography on KING CORN (2006), a Peabody award-winning documentary for ITVS, was noted for its "handsome lensing" by Dennis Harvey (Variety) and was dubbed "visually arresting" by Ann Hornaday (The Washington Post). Cullman has also produced and directed a number of short films in collaboration with non-profits and governmental agencies like the New York City Housing Authority and the Ford Foundation. His 2008 doc for the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence and the Yale Child Study Center explored partnerships between police departments and mental health clinicians in cities across the US. Cullman graduated from Brown University with honors (1999), where he majored in Urban Studies and the Visual Arts, and founded Yellow Cake Films in 2006. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Marshall Curry
Discussing the film If A Tree Falls on Thursday, March 31, 7:00pm
Marshall Curry got his start shooting, directing, and editing the documentary STREET FIGHT, which followed Cory Booker's first run for mayor of Newark, NJ. The film went on to be nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy. STREET FIGHT won the Audience Awards at the Tribeca Film Festival, AFI/Discovery SilverDocs Festival, and Hot Docs Festival. It also received the Jury Prize for Best International Documentary at Hot Docs and was nominated for a Writer's Guild of America (WGA) Award. After STREET FIGHT, Curry was the Director and Producer, as well as one of the Cinematographers and Editors of the feature documentary, RACING DREAMS, called "The best movie of the year," by Scott Feinberg of the L.A. Times. Dreamworks is currently adapting it for a fictional remake. Prior to filmmaking, Marshall taught English in Guanajuato, Mexico, worked in public radio, and taught government in Washington DC. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College where he studied Comparative Religion and was a Eugene Lang Scholar. He was also a Jane Addams Fellow at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy, where he wrote about the history, philosophy, and economics of non-profits.
Mark Dixon
Discussing the film YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip on Saturday, April 2, 7:00pm
Mark is a Producer/Director of YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip. Mark attended Stanford University and graduated in 1997 with a BS in Industrial Engineering. While familiarizing himself with web and media technologies during a 10 year career in Silicon Valley, Mark discovered that our planet Earth was having a tough time accommodating her most dominant species. He also realized that a sound retirement plan would optimally include a stable planet. In an attempt to address these concerns (not to mention an itch to see the country), he went on to launch YERT in 2006 with his college buddy, Ben Evans. Now, approximately 54 months later, he is thrilled to see the world premiere of the YERT feature film at EFFY. This is his first feature film.
Matthew Eckelman
Discussing the film YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip on Saturday, April 2, 7:00pm
Matthew Eckelman is a lecturer and postdoc at Yale University in the Schools of Engineering and Forestry & Environmental Studies and collaborates there with the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering and the Center for Industrial Ecology. His research covers life cycle assessment, industrial environmental management, and environmental and sustainability strategy. He is also part of a green engineering firm that consults with a range of businesses, organizations, and governments. Prior to this, Matthew worked with the Massachusetts State Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and Design that Matters, a non-profit product design company, and was a Peace Corps science instructor in southern Nepal for several years. He holds a PhD in environmental engineering from Yale.
Ben Evans
Discussing the film YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip on Saturday, April 2, 7:00pm
Ben is a Director/Producer of YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip. Ben graduated from Stanford University in 1994 with a BS in Science, Technology, and Society...at least that's what he tells his family. After working as an actor for a decade in LA and NYC, Ben found himself looking for a way to marry his creative urges with his abiding passion for the environment and a growing concern about the future. Looking for adventure and a sense of greater purpose, Ben launched YERT in 2006 with his college buddy, Mark Dixon, and convinced his exceedingly understanding wife, Julie, to join him. After far too much time in an editing cave and well aware that one good four letter word deserves another, he is elated to be premiering YERT at EFFY. This is his first feature film.
Michael Faison
Director of Yale University’s Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium.
Discussing the film The City Dark on Wednesday, March 30, 7:00pm
Michael teaches several astronomy courses at Yale and holds series of public lectures on topics such as astrophysics, the history of astronomy, cultural astronomy, and observational astronomy (stargazing). His research interests include Archaeoastronomy, Interstellar Medium structure and dynamics, Very Long Baseline Interferometry, and using small telescopes and digital planetarium systems for undergraduate education.
Dan Imhoff
Discussing the film Bag It on Friday, April 1, 7:00pm
Dan Imhoff is a researcher, author, and independent publisher who has concentrated for nearly 20 years on issues related to farming, the environment, and design. He is the president and co-founder of Watershed Media, a non-profit publishing house based in Northern California. Dan has appeared on hundreds of national and regional radio and television programs, including CBS Sunday Morning, Science Friday, and West Coast Live. His books have gained national attention with coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsweek, the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. He has testified before Congress and spoken at numerous conferences, corporate and government offices, and college campuses, including Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Vermont Law School.
Martin Medina
Discussing the film Waste Land on Monday, March 28, 7:00pm
Martin Medina is originally from Mexico. He received his Ph.D. form Yale in 1997. He has collaborated with international organizations and academic institutions on waste management issues in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Has received numerous awards and grants, including four consecutive awards from the Global Development Network, the world's largest competition in development research. Author of over 45 publications, including a book, "The World's Scavengers: Salvaging for Sustainable Consumption and Production." Currently Sr. International Relations Specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative project on the informal recycling sector in developing countries.
Liz Milwe
Discussing the film Bag It on Friday, April 1, 7:00pm
Liz Milwe is currently a member of the Westport Connecticut Representative Town Meeting (RTM). In 2008, she and three of her colleagues were able to enact an ordinance that banned plastic bags from Westport's shopping sector, the first such ban in Connecticut. This work led to two intense years of research on the health and environmental risks of the plastic bag industry, the culmination of which is her internationally recognized artistic collaboration called "In The Bag." The "In The Bag" installation was just on display at the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Conference in Nairobi, and is now on display at the Darien Nature Center in Darien Connecticut. Liz is also one of the founders of the Green Village Initiative, a volunteer-based grass roots organization established in Fall 2008 to support citizens passionate about making environmental and community change through local action.
Nancy Moran
Discussing the film Queen of the Sun on Sunday, April 3, 6:00pm
Nancy A. Moran is the William H. Fleming Professor in Biology at the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department. Dr. Moran’s research involves the evolution of bacterial genomes and of symbiotic associations. She also works on general principles involving the evolution of genomes in bacteria. From 1986 to 2010, she served on the faculty of the University of Arizona, where she was a Regents’ Professor. In 2010, she won the International Prize for Biology. Dr. Moran was also awarded a MacArthur fellowship in 1997, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004, the American Academy of Microbiology in 2004, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007. Dr. Moran holds a B.A. from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Michigan.
Paulo Moreira
Discussing the film Waste Land on Monday, March 28, 7:00pm
Paulo Moreira is Assistant Professor of Spanish & Portuguese at Yale. He has published scholarly articles and reviews on Octavio Paz and Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Mario de Andrade and Jean Toomer. He has also published a poetry volume called Quatro Partes and his poems and short stories appeared in Brazilian literary magazines and journals. Currently he is working on the translation of a collection of Faulkner’s short stories to Portuguese and working on a book about the short stories of William Faulkner, João Guimarães Rosa, and Juan Rulfo.
Tiffany Shlain
Discussing the film Connected on Tuesday, March 29, 7:00pm
Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards, co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences and a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. Her films have been selected by over 100 film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, and Rotterdam, won 20 awards including Audience and Grand Jury Prizes, been translated into 8 languages and been shown at museums including LACMA, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and the Guggenheim. A celebrated thinker and speaker, she has advised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is on the advisory board of M.I.T.'s Geospatial Lab and presented the 2010 Commencement Address at UC Berkeley.
Taggart Siegel
Discussing the film Queen of the Sun on Sunday, April 3, 6:00pm
Taggart Siegel has been directing award-winning documentaries and dramas for 25 years that reflect cultural diversity with absorbing style. From spiritual elders struggling to preserve traditions in alien environments to marginalized youth surviving hostile streets, the subjects of his films present vital perspectives rarely seen in mainstream media. THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN won 31 International Film Festivals awards and is currently being released theatrically around the world. Siegel’s films bring compelling voices and visions to a global audience. Siegel is the co-founder of Collective Eye, Inc., a non-profit media organization based in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon.
Richard Stevens
Discussing the film The City Dark on Wednesday, March 30, 7:00pm
Richard Stevens received a B.S. in Genetics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has been working for a long time trying to help figure out why people get cancer. A perplexing challenge which Stevens began to engage in the late 1970s is the confounding mystery of why breast cancer risk rises so dramatically as societies industrialize. He proposed in 1987 a radical new theory that use of electric lighting, resulting in lighted nights, might produce ‘circadian disruption’ causing changes in the hormones relevant to breast cancer risk, and thereby play an important role in breast cancer causation worldwide. Accumulating evidence has generally supported the theory. Stevens teaches medical/dental students, graduate students in the PhD program, and MPH students at UConn Health Center.
Tiaõ (Sebastiao Carlos dos Santos)
Discussing the film Waste Land on Monday, March 328, 7:00pm
Tiaõ is the young, charismatic President of ACAMJG (the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho), a co-operative to improve the lives of his fellow catadores, featured in the film Waste Land. Inspired by the political texts he found in the waste, Tiaõ had to convince his co-workers that organizing could make a difference. Tiaõ has been picking since he was 11 years old.
Mary Evelyn Tucker
Discussing the film Connected on Tuesday, March 29, 7:00pm
Discussing the film Journey of the Universe on Friday, March 25, 7:00pm & Saturday March 26, 5:30pm
Mary Evelyn Tucker is a Senior Lecturer and Senior Scholar at Yale University where she has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as well as the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies. She is a co-founder and co-director with John Grim of the Forum on Religion and Ecology. Together they organized a series of ten conferences on World Religions and Ecology at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. They are series editors for the ten volumes from the conferences distributed by Harvard University Press. She is also Research Associate at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard. She is the author of Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase (Open Court Press, 2003), Moral and Spiritual Cultivation in Japanese Neo-Confucianism (SUNY, 1989) and The Philosophy of Qi (Columbia University Press, 2007). She co-edited Worldviews and Ecology (Orbis, 1994), Buddhism and Ecology (Harvard, 1997), Confucianism and Ecology (Harvard, 1998), and Hinduism and Ecology (Harvard, 2000) and When Worlds Converge (Open Court, 2002). With Tu Weiming she edited two volumes on Confucian Spirituality (Crossroad, 2004). She also co-edited a Daedalus volume titled Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change? (2001). She edited several of Thomas Berry’s books: Evening Thoughts (Sierra Club Books and University of California Press, 2006), The Sacred Universe (Columbia University Press, 2009), Christian Future and the Fate of Earth (Orbis Book, 2009). She is a member of the Interfaith Partnership for the Environment at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). She served on the International Earth Charter Drafting Committee from 1997-2000 and is a member of the Earth Charter International Council. B.A. Trinity College, M.A. SUNY Fredonia, M.A. Fordham University, PhD Columbia University.
John Wargo
Discussing the film Bag It on Friday, April 1, 7:00pm
John Wargo is a Professor of Risk Analysis, Environmental Policy, and Political Science, and Chair of the Yale College Environmental Studies Major and Program. He has just written Green Intelligence Creating Environments that Protect Human Health published by Yale Press. The book won the Independent Publishers Award of Gold Medal in the field of “environment, ecology, and nature” for 2010. It also won the 2010 Connecticut Book Award in non-fiction. It was chosen as one of Scientific American’s favorite books for 2009. Professor Wargo also wrote Our Children’s Toxic Legacy: How Science and Law Fail to Protect Us from Pesticides, published by Yale University Press in 1998, presenting a history of law and science governing pesticides with special attention to the vulnerability of infants and children. The book won the American Association of Publishers award as the Best Scholarly & Professional Book in Government and Political Science in 1998. He is also co-author of Ecosystems: Science and Management published by Springer-Verlag in 1998. Wargo participated in several National Academy of Sciences committees, analyzing children’s exposure to toxic substances. He also has testified before both Senate and House Committees, and been an advisor to the White House, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture organization, the EPA, USDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on environmental threats to children’s health. He has participated in the design of federal and state laws and regulations intended to reduce human exposures to air pollution, pesticides, plastics, mercury, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
Robert Zinn
Discussing the film The City Dark on Wednesday, March 30, 7:00pm
Robert Zinn is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Yale's Department of Astronomy. He has researched the structure and evolution of the Milky Way for more than 30 years. His fascination with astronomy began as a teenager in West Hartford, CT when he built his own telescope to view the night sky from the backyard of his parents' house. Although the sky is much brighter now is suburbia, he still explores the Universe with his own telescope.
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Speakers
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Ian Cheney - Sir Peter Crane
- Bob Crelin
- Sam Cullman
- Marshall Curry
- Mark Dixon
- Matthew Eckelman
- Ben Evans
- Michael Faison
- Dan Imhoff
- Martin Medina
- Liz Milwe
- Nancy Moran
- Paulo Moreira
- Tiffany Shlain
- Taggart Siegel
- Richard Stevens
- Tiaõ (Sebastiao Carlos dos Santos)
- Mary Evelyn Tucker
- John Wargo
- Robert Zinn
About Us
In just two short years, The Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY) has become the premiere student-run festival for environmental films. EFFY showcases the arts through incisive, cutting edge films that raise awareness of environmental and related social issues. We aim to facilitate meaningful discourse and spark action and innovation throughout the Yale community and beyond.
The EFFY Team
Yan He
Yan is a 2nd-year Master of Environmental Management student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She was born in northwest China and grew up in Shanghai. Yan received a B.S. in Environmental Science from Fudan University in 2010. She has always enjoyed good stories. "Movies have been my best friends and shaped my personality as I grew up”. She is particularly interested in the complex interaction between human activities and the environment.
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Richard Miron
Richard is in his senior year as a Yale undergraduate, studying film, art, and environment. Growing up in Marietta, Georgia, he founded a film club at his high school, and created and organized an annual tri-county student film festival in the Greater Atlanta area (which is still thriving today). He strongly believes in using the arts as an educational and revelatory tool to help our planet, and is committed to making EFFY 2012 the best EFFY yet.
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Emily Schosid
Emily hails from Boulder, Colorado, where she got her B.A. in Environmental Policy. She is now a second year student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and has focused her research on the ways the arts can be used as a tool for environmental education and communication. She likes to spend the time in between classwork and watching environmental movies with writing poetry, reading excellent fiction, riding her bike, and practicing yoga.
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Gina Schrader
Gina joins us from Washington, DC where she served as the Conservation Associate at Defenders of Wildlife. For the past nine years, she developed and managed Defenders’ Great Lakes and Southeast red wolf conservation programs and served as the DC liaison for the Alaska predator control program. From 2007-2008, she was chosen to participate in the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders. Through this program, she received training in various aspects of campaign development and management while executing an international wildlife conservation campaign addressing the illegal trade of Asian pangolins in Cambodia. Gina also serves on the board of directors of the Red Wolf Coalition, which advocates for the long-term survival of red wolf populations. While at F&ES, Gina hopes to gain a deeper understanding about the economic, sociological and biological factors that shape environmental management decisions.
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Chandra Simon, Executive Director
Chandra has been the producer and associate producer of award-winning films and TV shows. Over the past 10 years, she has worked with numerous television networks, including HBO, CBS, PBS and IFC. Most recently, she was a producer for the HDNet series Dan Rather Reports, where she reported on some of the most pressing environmental issues of the day. Other recent credits include Producer of The Big Bad Swim, a feature film comedy that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and Field Producer of Armenian Genocide, a documentary that aired nationally on PBS. She is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, the BBC's documentary training division in London, and she is currently a Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
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Paul Thomson
Paul’s interests lie in large carnivore conservation and working to popularize conservation through media. He is a director of Ewaso Lions, a lion research and conservation project in northern Kenya. One of his favorite projects is the Wildlife Cinema, through which he screens wildlife films in rural villages using a projector, small generator, and a white sheet pinned to a vehicle. Paul holds a BSc in Wildlife Ecology and Management from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 2007, Paul was selected for the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders program by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Defenders of Wildlife.
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The EFFY Team
Advisory Board
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Eric Desatnik, - Founder
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Tamar Cooper, - Co-Founder
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Chandra Simon, - Senior Advisor
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Mary Fischer, - Carbon Master, Stonyfield Farm, Inc.
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Gordon Geballe, - Associate Dean of Alumni and External Affairs, Lecturer in Urban Ecology, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
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Paul Draghi, - Lecturer in Forest History, Director of Information and Library Systems, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Home
EFFY 2012 Poster & Video Contest
Calling all designers and filmmakers! Take a shot at designing this year's EFFY Poster and promo video. Click here for details.
Updates from Festival Films
IF A TREE FALLS has been nominated for the Documentary Feature Oscar. Bravo, Marshall and Sam!
Ian Cheney, Director of EFFY Grand Jury Prize winner THE CITY DARK, has been selected to receive the 17th annual Heinz Awards. Congratulations, Ian!
EFFY 2011 Winners
Read the press relesase to find out which films took home the top awards. Click here.
Download Last Year's Program
Click here for PDF
Watch
A conversation with Dan Rather: Journalism, Justice and the Environment -- from EFFY 2010.
A conversation with Van Jones at EFFY 2010:
