Sierra Club Screens Gardens, Jungles, Trash and Rats

by Andrea Meyer

With the current mega-glut of film festivals out there, it's refreshing to find one whose aims are like none other. Where other film festivals promote films, filmmakers, sponsors, arts organizations, and the independent film industry in general, the Sierra Club Film Festival, which held its second annual event April 17-19, promotes issues. Preserving the environment, human and animal rights, conservation of natural resources, and otherwise enriching life on this planet are the points of this festival.

This year the Sierra Club brought in veteran programmer Steve Grenyo, who has experience in publicity and programming for the New York Film Festival, New Directors/ New Films, and the Film Forum, to add film savvy to its activist objectives. I was brought in as a programming consultant and to help write the catalogue notes. Knowing little about the festival or environmental issues, I was first hesitant but now thrilled to have played a part in the event.

In Grenyo's words, the festival's goal is to "showcase films and individuals who emphasize the ability for all of us to make a difference." Jennifer and Leslie Schwerin's humorously horrifying film "Talking Trash," for example, introduces us to a problem that's so close to our daily lives, we can smell it. And the cure for the garbage glut rests in each of our households. Brian Danitz and Chris Zelov's enlightening "Ecological Design: Inventing the Future" introduces us to design pioneers who offer concrete avenues to creating environmentally friendly buildings and cities. Shawn Cuddy's "Voices of Women: Bernadette Cozart and the Greening of Harlem" illustrates how this environmental progress can literally start in your own backyard. Cozart transforms inner city vacant lots into gardens, providing food, recreation space, beauty and work to neighborhoods in need.

One Lower Eastside community garden that was recently bulldozed by developers, the Chico Mendes Garden, was highlighted in Mark Chandler's "The Garden," which was screened Saturday night. The film was introduced by Jeffrey Wright, activist and editor of Cover Magazine, who was featured in the film. Wright closed with a plea to the audience to make a pledge to "defend every blade of grass, to defend the gardens to the last drop of blood." He ragged on Rudy "Bulliani," the destroyer of communities, and howled, inspiring the crowd to howl with him.

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The short was followed by "Rubber Jungle" by Bill Day and Terry Schwartz, two "camera guys" who fund their documentaries by shooting everything from Jerry Springer to phone sex commercials. "Rubber Jungle"'s a story within a story: it's about how a couple of camera guys go down to make a movie about the making of a movie about murdered activist Chico Mendez (a studio production that was canceled after a reported $8 million had been spent) and end up making a movie about Chico Mendez themselves. The playful tone and casual narration make this historical documentary extremely accessible and also totally hilarious. I can't wait to see what these camera guys decide to stick their cameras into next. Other festival highlights included Mark Lewis's comical exploration of New York City's rodent problem "Rat", Ian MacKenzie's "Cry of the Forgotten Land" about the deforestation that is endangering local tribes in New Guinea, and Christopher Walker's "Trinkets and Beads", an infuriating look at the indigenous people in Ecuador whose lifestyle is being threatened by oil drilling. Each evening film program was followed by a panel discussion about the issues presented in the films. All of the selections might not have been great films in the aesthetic sense, but all of them will wake you up, some even inspiring enough to get you on an airplane to go save the Amazon. If that isn't greatness, what is? < KEYWORDS: Login to recommend this article » posted on April 29, 1998 Films to Snag Login to Leave a Comment »