Thursday, March 28th
6:40 pm: Film Screening and Discussion: 2 Episodes in the Wild Hope Series
Conservation Storytelling: From Inception to Impact
Biodiversity loss is a global crisis, but success is out there. The new broadcast and YouTube series WILD HOPE aims to make these conservation stories accessible and engaging for a global, young audience. The key to that success? Focus on hope. Biodiversity decline is a local problem with local solutions – and the milestones for successfully reversing the crisis are everywhere. Produced by HHMI Tangled Bank Studios. Introduction and post-screening Q+A with Sarah Arnoff, Co-Executive Producer of the series; Alex Duckles, Senior Digital Media and Impact Producer, and Alexandra Pearson, Impact and Communications Producer.
—Vertical Meadows (7:11): As urban expansion quickly replaces natural habitats, façade engineer Alistair Law has created a radically new way to restore native ecosystems for pollinators and create natural spaces for us all within cities—by turning the walls of buildings and construction sites into meadows.
—Return of the Manatees (16:01): Today, manatees are experiencing what scientists call a UME — an unusual mortality event — some 1000 of them are dying each year, a major crisis for a population of only 7000, but citizens in the manatee stronghold of Crystal River have pioneered an approach to restore critical seagrass that now shows promise to help the gentle giants throughout their range.
March 28th | 6:40 pm to 8:10 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Panelists
Sarah Arnoff
Co-Executive Producer of the Wild Hope series | Tangled Bank Studios
Sarah Arnoff, a former zookeeper and widely traveled wildlife conservationist who has 12 years of experience producing, directing and shooting award-winning wildlife television series and specials, is currently the Co-Executive Producer of the Wild Hope series for Tangled Bank Studios. Previously a show-runner and Co-Executive Producer for several Emmy Award-Winning series with Jeff Corwin, she has produced wildlife documentaries with National Geographic TV, including a series on great apes with Jane Goodall.
Alex Duckles
Digital Media Specialist | HHMI Tangled Bank Studios
Alex Duckles, a digital media specialist at HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, has backgrounds in ecology, filmmaking and communication, including narrative models of science storytelling. He previously produced an award-winning documentary on destructive algae blooms and worked for PBS Education and PBS Digital Studios. Alex is currently focused on producing short-form video content that brings emotionally-driven science storytelling to platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, including the original YouTube series “I Contain Multitudes” about the human microbiome starring best-selling author Ed Yong.
Alexandra Pearson
Impact and Communications Producer | HHMI Tangled Bank Studios
Alexandra Pearson leads impact-driven campaigns at HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, overseeing strategy development, key events and partnerships. An expert in social impact strategy and creative film distribution, she brings 10+ years’ experience in media and grassroots organizing. Previously, Pearson worked at Vulcan Productions, where she developed and managed impact campaigns for more than 15 films, TV shows and multimedia content, including the "Ghost Fleet" campaign, which supported the passage of congressional legislation improving the regulation of unsustainable and unethical fishing practices. Prior to Vulcan, she was an impact campaigns director at Picture Motion, where she contributed to more than 40 film and TV campaigns.
8:15 pm: Film Screening: Abundance
A film about the remarkable Farmlink project
Introduction before film and Q+A following, with the film’s director Owen Dubeck and Farmlink’s Director of Sustainability, Julia DeSantis.
During the Covid epidemic and the resulting largest food crisis in a century, as food bank lines grew across the country, a group of college students stepped up to try to figure out how to help those facing hunger in their community. Their very successful small local effort inspired and motivated 600+ students from around the country to drop everything and work in remarkably creative ways to mobilize a national effort to feed millions of families and combat food waste. Within months, the project scaled up far more than anyone could have imagined, and these student activists now find themselves on the front lines of finding long-term solutions to eliminating waste in the food system and fighting hunger nationally and globally.
March 28th | 8:15 pm to 9:15 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Panelists
Owen Dubeck
Documentary Filmmaker
Owen Dubeck is a Santa Monica, CA-based avid surfer and documentary filmmaker whose films have raised $1 million+ for social causes, influenced legislation and been screened to audiences across the country. His films include: Free to Care (Audience Award at Austin Film Festival), Paperboy Love Prince Runs for Mayor and, most recently, Abundance. In the early days of the pandemic, Owen helped found and lead an initiative called The Farmlink Project that scaled from a tiny non-profit of college students into a nationally recognized movement that has delivered over 80 million meals.
This film, directed and produced by Sylvia Ryerson, won a prestigious award for best nonfiction film or television presentation on Appalachia or its people from the Appalachian Studies Association. It’s about a longstanding radio program that sends familial messages of love to people incarcerated in Central Appalachia, one of the most concentrated regions of rural prison and jail growth nationwide. Calls from Home follows the weekly broadcast through prison walls, portraying the many forms of distance that rural prison building creates—and the ceaseless work to end the racist system of mass incarceration and family separation.
March 28th | 9:20 pm to 10:10 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Friday, March 29th
Co-sponsored by Amazon Watch, with introduction before and Q+A following the film. Directed by Indigenous activist Edivan Guajajara and environmental filmmakers Chelsea Greene and Rob Grobman; produced by Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens with Leonardo DiCaprio Executive Producer.
We Are Guardians follows Indigenous forest-guardian Marçal Guajajara and activist Puyr Tembé as they fight to protect their territories from deforestation, an illegal logger who has no choice but to cut the forest down, and a large landowner at the mercy of thousands of invaders and extractive industry. Through intimate, character focused storytelling, the film weaves together politics, history, economics, science, and consciousness to provide an in-depth exploration of the incredibly complex and critical situation of the Amazon region.
March 29th | 6:40 pm to 8:35 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Directed by award-winning Berkeley-based filmmaker Rick Goldsmith, is the story of one secretive hedge fund that is plundering America’s newspapers and the journalists who are fighting back. Investigative reporter Julie Reynolds, Denver Post editorialist Chuck Plunkett and a handful of others, backed by the NewsGuild Union, go toe-to-toe with the faceless Alden Global Capital in a battle to save and rebuild local journalism across America. Who will control the future of America’s news ecosystem: Wall Street billionaires concerned only with profit, or those who see journalism as an essential public service and the lifeblood of our democracy?
March 29th | 8:40 pm to 10:35 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Panelists
Rick Goldsmith
Filmmaker
Rick Goldsmith is a San Francisco Bay Area filmmaker who has been making documentaries for four decades. Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink is the third of his trilogy of films focusing on journalism, following Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press and The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (co-produced/co-directed with Judith Ehrlich), both Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Feature and numerous other awards. Among Goldsmith’s other films are Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw, the intimate story of a super-star athlete’s struggle with mental illness, and Everyday Heroes, a behind-the-headlines look at race, youth and national service through a eyes of a group of Americorps volunteers.
Saturday, March 30th
Written, Produced & Directed by Darrell Hillaire & Beth Pielert; executive-produced by the Lummi-led non-profit, Children of the Setting Sun Productions, and Vision Maker Media. (62-minutes)
Inspired by the late Chexanexwh Larry Kinley, a Lummi fisherman and tribal leader who worked to protect wild salmon and promote tribal sovereignty, Scha’nexw Elhtal’nexw Salmon People: Preserving a Way of Life follows two Lummi families as they fish sockeye while navigating climate change, wildfire smoke, and a depleting fishery. In these critical times, Larry asks: “Who Are We Without Salmon?” Scha’nexw Elhtal’nexw Salmon People shows the resilience and adaptive nature of the salmon and the people. It is a spiritual reflection on a lifeway centered on respect and gratitude since time immemorial.
There will be a 30-minute Q+A period after the screening with the film’s directors, Darell Hillaire and Beth Pielert.
March 30th | 7:00 pm to 8:40 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Panelists
Darrell Hillaire
Executive Director | Children of the Setting Sun Productions
Darrell Hillaire, a member of Lummi Nation and former Lummi Nation Council Member for 15 years, founded and directed the Lummi Youth Academy for 15 years and is the Executive Director of Children of the Setting Sun Productions for whom he has written and produced many multi-media storytelling projects, including theatrical works, videos and The Friends and Relatives podcast series. He currently leads the Salmon People Project, a multi-faceted strategy to help save salmon and restore rivers.
Beth Pielert
Founder | Good Film Works
Beth Pielert, a producer/director/writer of television and documentary films, founded Good Film Works in 2001 and has been with Children of the Setting Sun Productions since 2018, co-directing and co-writing Scha'nexw Elhtal'nexw Salmon People: Preserving a Way of Life. Pielert’s many other documentaries include: Out of the Poison Tree, a PBS documentary about survivors of the Cambodian Genocide; and the award-winning films, The Corporation, and Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics on Trial. Under the Good Film Works umbrella, Pielert has produced, directed, and edited documentary films for multiple Bay Area nonprofits and arts organizations helping to raise over 1 million dollars to improve public schools in underserved communities and help eradicate homelessness.
