Join us as we continue the 2012 ENRP Environmental Film Series with “A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet”.
Director and Producer, Mark Kitchell will provide opening remarks and discussion.
Film synopsis:
The Battle For a Living Planet is the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement – grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years from conservation to climate change. From halting dams in the Grand Canyon to battling 20,000 tons of toxic waste at Love Canal; from Greenpeace saving the whales to Chico Mendes and the rubbertappers saving the Amazon; from climate change to the promise of transforming our civilization, the film tells vivid stories about people fighting – and succeeding – against enormous odds.
It’s not easy being green. Environmentalists have been revered and reviled, for being killjoys and Cassandras. Every battle begins as a lost cause and even the victories have to be fought for again and again. Still, environmentalism is one of the great causes of the twentieth century, and one of the keys to the twenty-first. It has arisen at a juncture in history when humans have come to rival nature as a power determining the fate of the earth. It’s the battle for a living planet.
A Fierce Green Fire focuses on activism; it’s about movements more than issues. It’s a more engaging approach, full of drama and passion. It’s also a more open-ended approach than cant and rant. We emphasize synthesis, bringing together all the pieces of the environmental picture to explore connections, resonance, larger visions and deeper meanings. Never before has a film told the full story of environmentalism. Our hope is it will be a defining film that reaches and teaches a huge and hungry audience.
Written, directed and produced by Mark Kitchell, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, A Fierce Green Fire is narrated by David Denny, and edited by Ken Schneider, Veronica Selver, and Jonathan Beckhardt. Its executive producer is Marc N. Weiss. With cinematography by Vicente Franco, the film features original music by George Michalski, Sonya Kitchell, Garth Stevenson, and Randall Wallace. It was inspired by the book, A Fierce Green Fire, by Philip Shabecoff.
