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.
