Green Screen Film Festival Debuts at CCC

Monday, May 25, 2009

Movies exploring sustainability — from shorts to feature length films — take center stage at the first Green Screen Clackamas Film Festival June 6 though 8 at Clackamas Community College. The film festival is the capstone to the spring-term Sustainability Project at the college.

The Green Screen festival features films ranging from the critically acclaimed “Finding Normal,” by Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, as well as with shorts, student work and some of the best documentaries exploring sustainability from the social, economic and environmental perspectives. All events are free and open to the public.

“The Green Screen emerged out of a desire to showcase student films from our film-making classes with films from more established directors in our educational setting,” said Bill Briare, dean of Humanities at the college. “The sustainability theme came from our intent to have a capstone event to celebrate a year of focus on this timely topic.”

The Green Screen Clackamas Film Festival begins Saturday, June 6, with a reception from 3:30 to 6 p.m. in the college’s Niemeyer Center. The reception features refreshments, live music — including the Nancy King Trio, informational displays, plant giveaways for the first 100 guests, and an opportunity to meet the film makers. A variety of short films will run in the Osterman Theatre during the reception.

Feature films begin at 6 p.m. with “Finding Normal” in the Osterman Theatre and “A Passion for Sustainability” from director Eric Stacey in the McLoughlin Auditorium. Both films are followed by a panel discussion. The final film of the evening, Aaron Woolf’s “King Korn” begins at 8 p.m. in the Osterman Theatre.

The film festival continues Sunday, June 7, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the McLoughlin Auditorium with a showing of work from area high school students including digital shorts and animations.

On Monday, June 8, at 7 p.m., the work of CCC students will be shared during the CCC Student Showcase.

An overview of the films that will be shown follows:

Saturday, 4 to 6 p.m., Osterman Theatre, short films.
• The Story of Stuff. Annie Leonard’s fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.

• Plain Ride Penn. Kyia Clayton’s film about a 15-year-old girl’s single-handed efforts to rid Portland’s Metropolitan Learning Center of disposable polystyrene trays.

• Everything You Need to Know. 'The Story of Big Oaks Barn'. Video and script by Valerie Garrison.

• Tryon Life. A short documentary that gives an overview of the Tryon Life Community in Portland. Directed by Cindy O'Loughlin.

Feature films, 6 to 8 p.m.

• Finding Normal. A feature-length cinema-verite documentary film about long-time heroin and crack addicts trying to rebuild lives devastated by addiction and incarceration. Directed by Brian Lindstrom.

• A Passion for Sustainability. Ten years ago, 14 business owners in Portland looked at their business plans through the lens of environmental sustainability and began the journey to create businesses that would be responsible for Earth's natural systems while building economic growth. Along the way, all 14 developed A Passion for Sustainability. Directed by Eric Stacey.

• King Korn. A feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Korn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the East Coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat and how we farm. Directed by Aaron Woolf.

Musical performances at the Saturday reception include the Nancy King Trio from 5 p.m. to 5:40 p.m. in the LeRoy Andersen Room. Performances will also feature CCC students and staff.

More information about the film festival may be found at www.clackamas.edu/greenscreen or by calling Andy Mingo at 503-657-6958, ext. 2803.