Reflections at the end of Week Two: Athens is catching on!

EcoFocus had a GREAT second week. We think of our “festival weeks” as starting on Fridays. On Friday, October 9th, our second week kicked off with three new films: Tapped, End of the Line, and the much-anticipated The Cove. On Friday at 2pm, we had around 60 people show up for Tapped. At 2pm on a Friday. Think about that. Thanks, Athens! As it turned out, Athenians really loved this film, which exposes the environmental impact of the bottled water industry. The free stainless steel water bottles provided by the Athens Clarke County Public Utilities Department probably didn’t hurt. All three screenings of the film were very well attended. Tapped is a great film for a lot of reasons, but I think that the beauty of this film is that it provides a bunch of reasons why we all need to take one simple action: stop buying bottled water (or bottled beverages, for that matter).  Many environmental films can be overwhelming, and one leaves these screenings wondering “where do I even start?” With this film, that’s an easy answer.

We opened The Cove later that night to a sold-out audience. This film is an ingenious adventure story that manages to use great cinematography and storytelling to place each audience member into the role of environmental activist. We brought in a group of panelists to participate in a discussion after the film. Lori Marino (Emory), Randy Malamud (Georgia State), Carrie Packwood Freeman (Georgia State), and John Schacke (Univ. of Georgia) brought in a collective expertise on cetacean intelligence, dolphin biology and behavior, animal captivity, human/non-human interaction. Audience questions varied from questions about the International Whaling Commission to questions about whether we should condone the practice of putting animals on display in zoos and aquaria. A controversial subject, as you can imagine. We’re proud to be able to bring the community together to talk about this film.

End of the Line had its own special night on Tuesday October 13th. A great audience, a great discussion moderated by Duncan Elkins, and finally a sense that Athens is catching on to EcoFocus and coming out to see and support what we’re doing!

As I write, I’m sitting in the dark on a Thursday night in the Ecology Building Auditorium on the UGA campus. Around 70 people are sitting here watching Addicted to Plastic with me. The interest and support for these films is overwhelming. thank you, Athens, for thinking this is an important project.

Reflections at the end of Week One

As we approach the end of our first week, it’s interesting to reflect on how things are going with the festival. As you know, our second festival’s format is an experiment. Rather than a standard long-weekend or 10-day film festival format, we’re running EcoFocus for a month. Each Friday, we open 2-3 new films and run them for a week. The short films are shown throughout the month in blocks. Why the new format? Lots of reasons, the first of which being we’re relatively new and it makes sense to try a few different ways of doing this. Another major reason for this experiment is that we live in a town with lots to do. Too much to do, in fact. For a town of its size, the number of leisure activities available to Athenians is overwhelming. We decided to give people more chances to see these films. In part this was a response to the  (reasonable) excuse of “I was out of town that weekend and missed the whole fest.” We also hope that this format gives the films themselves the opportunity to generate buzz and draw in more viewers.

As much as I hesitate to admit this publicly, the EcoFocus films are pretty intense. Thus another reason for this new format is to be a little more realistic about how many films like these people are willing to take in over a short period of time. By offering each film several times over a week-long period, audiences can spread their film viewing out over the month, which is realistic not only in terms of people’s time, but also in terms of spreading out the intensity in a way that’s more conducive to really digesting the information.

How’s it going so far?

The short answer is: It’s too early to tell. We’ll see. We had a tough opening weekend due to competition with a home football game in Athens. For any of you reading this outside of Athens (or outside of the Southeast, for that matter), you might not have an appreciation for what that really means. But we knew about the game going into it, and were prepared for that. The long answer is: We suspect it’s going well. People tend to take a little while before they start paying attention to things happening around them. We hope that, at some point, the TV ads, billboards, posters, postcards, programs, and radio shows will start to sink in, and luckily, we still have three weeks to go! We also think that the several free events we’re sponsoring will draw some people in to the festival.

Last night, we had 175 people show up to a free screening of No Impact Man at the Tate Center Theater on the UGA campus. I think it’s safe to say that the awesome attendance last night is an indication of things picking up for EcoFocus.

Keep checking back, and we’ll let you know what we think! We’ve got a big weekend coming up with opening of The Cove, End of the Line, and Tapped. These films and related events should be a big draw, and we’re grateful to not be competing with football this time around. Thanks for reading!

Great “Recipes” Turnout; New EcoFocus Website launched

Fifty people – most of them UGA students – turned out for the Tuesday night special screening of Recipes for Disaster.The screening was part of the UGA Green Cup competition, with many students coming out to earn points for their residence hall. Thanks to all of you for coming!

We are five days from the official start of the festival. All the information about EcoFocus films, schedules, ticketing, etc. is now available on the EcoFocus website: www.ecofocusfilmfest.org.

Join us for opening night on Friday October 2nd at Ciné in downtown Athens. 6pm reception/social hour, 7pm screening of Earth Days. Tickets only $8 and available at at the Ciné box office or online at www.ecofocusfilmfest.org.

EcoFocus Preview Event on UGA Campus!

Tomorrow, Tuesday night, September 21st, at 8:30 pm, join EcoFocus and the UGA Green Cup Challenge for a screening of the film Recipes for Disaster. Join us at 8:30 pm to exchange your lightbulbs and get some other goodies, then the film starts at 9pm.

The location is the Miller Learning Center, Room 101, on the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Ga.

Recipes for Disaster shows that at the core of the impending climate catastrophe are those little failures that we as individuals make every day, and which are so much a part of human nature. All the everyday stuff that we don’t do, or that we can’t help doing, that eventually lead to destruction. The film follows one family that decides to go on an “oil detox” by continuing their average suburban lives but without using any fossil fuels, driving cars or flying in airplanes, or buying anything packaged in plastic, like food, make-up, shampoo, toothpaste, kids toys or those little plastic things that burst out of the Cornflakes. At times a family comedy, relationship drama, and insightful examination of climate catastrophe, Recipes for Disaster gives thirteen “recipes” that are leading our planet to disaster and shows how to combat them. Written and directed by John Webster.

Welcome to the EcoFocus News and Annoucements Blog!

Thanks for your interest in EcoFocus Film Festival. EcoFocus celebrates the power of films to inspire people about the environment. We’re in Athens, Georgia, and are a community-wide effort that was originally initiated by the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia.

After a successful first-year festival in October 2008, we are in the final planning stages of our second festival, which will run Oct 2-30, 2009. We will have our schedule up and running in a few days. Please check back for full details about films, schedules, and ticket information.