THE EFFY 2023 LINEUP
DAY 1
WednesDAY, MARCH 29, 2023 - 6 - 8 PM - BURKE AUDITORIUM - 195 PROSPECT Street
Climate Change and the Big Screen
Register for Day 1 screening: HERE
Join EFFY and the Yale Center for Environmental Communication in an exploration of Hollywood’s role in influencing attitudes and actions on climate change.
Extrapolations
The newly released drama series “Extrapolations” by executive producer Scott Z. Burns (“Contagion,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “The Report”) introduces a near future where the chaotic effects of climate change have become embedded into our everyday lives.
DAY 2
THURSDAY, march 30, 2023 - 5-9 pm - HQ L02 at 320 York Street
Resilience in Action: Stories of Conservation and Resistance in Latin America
Register for Day 2 screening: HERE
This panel showcases two powerful documentaries about environmental challenges in Latin America and the people leading the charge, fighting to protect their land, wildlife, and communities. Collectively, these documentaries show the challenges of protecting self and nature in the face of profit-driven industries, and the importance of community involvement and empowerment in conservation efforts.
Illusion of Abundance
Three women share a common goal: Carolina, Bertha and Maxima are leading today's environmental fight against modern conquistadors. Whereas governments and corporations, all trapped in a global race towards unlimited growth, need to get the cheapest raw materials on earth, these three women tell us a story of tireless courage: How to keep fighting to protect nature when your life is at risk? When police repression, corporate harassment, injuries, death threats or even the murder of community leaders are part of your daily routine? The film is in the middle of an international impact tour for environmental defenders. US and Latin American tours starts in mid 2023. Join the impact tour! #DefendTheDefenders #Now https://www.theillusionofabundance.earth/
Vicuña Salvation
At more than 5,000 meters above sea level, this film tells the incredible story of the conservation of a species and the empowerment of a community that lives in the Peruvian mountains. The vicuña produces the finest fiber in the world and a garment made of this material can cost thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, this seduced poachers and the black market, leading to the near-extinction of the species. In the 1970s, explorer Bill Franklin alerted the situation and managed to get the Peruvian government, global brands, and communities to make a pact. They agreed to market only garments that were made with certified fiber, that the local communities were in charge of the custody of the animal, and the result of the sustainable use of the fiber was for them. Today, these communities once again own the land that belonged to them before the conquest. And, in an unexpected twist, Bill Franklin crosses paths with Mike Safley, who years later will cause one of the most important social actions in this region of the planet.
DAY 3 - Two screenings
friDAY, march 31, 2023 - 11 am - 3 pm - HQ L02 at 320 York Street
The Cost of Progress: Community Health in a Changing Climate
Register HERE
In the face of climate change, communities around the world are exposed to compounding environmental hazards and rapidly changing landscapes. The four impactful films in this panel document some of these challenges and provide insight into the power of collective action in reclaiming public health.
A Tomorrow for Tonawanda: How Health Led the Way for an Energy Transition
What did the energy transition in the Town of Tonawanda, New York reveal about health, equity, and dignity? Within a just transition to a low-carbon world, it is important to understand the role of health at the community level. This short film explores community stakeholder accounts of those directly impacted by the operation and closure of a coal-fired power plant in the Town of Tonawanda, NY. We center health and bodies in this story, lending insight into how different axes of disparities – beyond the loss of jobs – manifest in the operation and transitions of energy sectors, orienting the movement towards a cleaner, more equitable future for all.
Allergy Alert: Paranoid in Our Immune System
From peanuts and pollen to cats and dust mites, allergy rates are soaring dramatically all over the globe, with inoffensive substances triggering life-threatening physical responses. Experts are predicting that by 2050, one in two will suffer from an allergy. Why are our immune systems overreacting in this way? To stem the tide of the epidemic, scientists are investigating the interface between genetics, environmental factors and our modern lifestyle, and developing revolutionary new approaches to prevention and treatment.
Cuidantsiqmi: Love and Care for the Land
The Wari Indigenous people of the Llupa community, located below the Cordillera Blanca of the Peruvian Andes, are facing an environmental disaster that is directly affecting their physical and mental health.
Children of Lead
To date, lead contamination keeps damaging health and the environment.
friDAY, march 31, 2023 - 6 pm - 9:30 pm - BURKE AUDITORIUM - 195 PROSPECT Street
Maintaining Giants: Ensuring our Forests Flourish - Presented by Yale Forest Forum
Register HERE
As our global ecosystems are threatened by disease, biodiversity loss, and mismanagement, it becomes critical to rethink how we manage and restore our forests. These films showcase large-scale efforts of restoration, management strategies based on ecosystem and traditional knowledge, and even the benefit of rehoming a single pine marten. Although just the beginning, these efforts can inspire hope about our ability to help our most critical ecosystems rebound and thrive.
Returning Fire to the Land
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes' Forestry Department is integrating traditional ecological knowledge within their current forestry management plan. This includes an ecosystem-scale, holistic approach, and integrating their historical positive relationship with fire, to benefit ecosystem health, cultural uses, and to prevent catastrophic-sized wildfires.
Hope and Restoration
Saving the Whitebark Pine: Whitebark pine trees are icons of North America's mountain landscape. They provide a host of ecosystem services and are considered a foundational and keystone species for the critical role they play in the places where they occur. They stand at the center of a web of life that supports dozens of plants and animals, and are a vital food source for grizzly bears, red squirrels, and Clark’s nutcrackers. Over the past several decades whitebark pine has experienced severe declines and today faces the very real threat of extinction. Hear directly from leading voices of the USDA Forest Service, American Forests, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation, and the Ricketts Conservation Foundation about what is at stake and why there is still time to save whitebark pine.
Sammy | a Pine Marten Story
A rescued pine marten kit finds a new home . Against a backdrop of a diminishing ecological landscape, we follow its story from rescue through rehab and release .
Fighting Fire with Fire
The Nature Conservancy uses prescribed burning to help the forests of western Montana.
DAY 4 - Two screenings
saturday, april 1, 2023 - 10 am - 12 pm - dixwell community house - 197 dixwell Street
The Environment through Film: An Event for New Haven Kids
Welcoming the New Haven community to watch two kid-friendly short films that explain environmental issues in a friendly and captivating way, followed by a nature craft and lunch.
The Bird and the Tree
Whitebark pine trees grow in some of the steepest, harshest environments in North America. They thrive and support a diversity of life in places where most trees can’t grow. How these trees have come to define an entire mountain ecosystem is the result of an ancient relationship with the bird that plants their seeds- the Clark's Nutcracker. Conceived as a visitor center film for Yellowstone National Park, "The Bird and The Tree" tells the story of one of nature's greatest duos and reveals how two very different organisms have co-evolved to live intertwined lives that are at the center of a remarkable web of life in the mountains.
Cool for You
“Cool For You”, an animated film based on the book of the same title, explains global warming to children in a friendly way. Incorporating different characters and families, animals and plants, children are introduced to CO2, and positive, easy ways to improve our impact on the earth.
saturday, april 1, 2023 -5 pm - 9 pm - BURKE AUDITORIUM - 195 PROSPECT Street
The World of Water, What’s at Stake: Conservation Efforts at Sea and on Shore
Register HERE
This panel discusses multiple angles of the issues we face in protecting the world’s waters and who calls them home. The films explore what is being done on various scales to address these problems that are at the center of humanity. Come join our discussion on water, both salt and fresh at this year’s EFFY.
The Witness is a Whale
A detective story spanning 60 years and half the globe, The Witness Is a Whale documents the uncovering of a massive illegal and secret slaughter of over 200,000 whales by the Soviet Union and Japan in the 1960’s, an act described by scientists as “one of the greatest environmental crimes of the 20th century.” Using interviews with Soviet era whaling scientists and whalers, contemporary conservation biologists from around the world, along with rare personal archival material, The Witness Is a Whale tells this story for the first time. What starts as an exposure of Soviet illegal whaling leads into a larger and darker story, as former Soviet whalers accuse Japan of also secretly killing whales, an act that Japan has never confessed to, even now as they reinstate commercial whaling. The ramifications of removing so many whales from the ocean are revealed with examples of whales exhibiting both intimate and previously undocumented behavior. This is accompanied by descriptions of the successful recovery of many whale populations and our increasing scientific understanding of their importance in ocean ecosystems.
No Other Lake
Motivated by a desire to better understand his home watershed, Jordan Rowell embarks on a two week kayaking trip along the 120-mile length of Lake Champlain, stopping to talk to a wide range of characters about the future of their shared basin. Set 50 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, No Other Lake is both a celebration of the unique beauty of Lake Champlain and a confrontation with its greatest challenges. This adventure-conservation documentary strives to inspire people to better connect with the natural world around them, see issues from a different point of view, and get involved with stewardship efforts happening close to home.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
DAY 1
WednesDAY, MARCH 29, 2023 - 6 - 7:30 PM - BURKE AUDITORIUM - 195 PROSPECT Street & Virtual
Climate Change and the Big Screen
Panelists
Dorothy Fortenberry
Executive Producer - Extrapolations
Dorothy is a screenwriter, playwright, and essayist. As a television writer and producer, she has worked on “Extrapolations,” “The 100” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” for which she received multiple Emmy nominations, the PGA Award, and two WGA Awards. She currently has several television projects in development, and she promises not all of them are apocalyptic. Her plays include: “Partners” (Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Humana Festival), “Species Native to California” (IAMA Theatre), and “The Lotus Paradox” (Warehouse Theatre).
Emily Coren
Emily Coren is a science communicator affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University where she has been working to adapt entertainment-education strategies for health promotion and social change to create more effective climate communication. She has a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and is a certified professional Science Illustrator. She has worked in science communication for 15 years, contributing to collections at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History and developing educational content for children’s films. Over the last six years, her work has led to new methods in developing frameworks at a national level, connecting community-led experiences to federal, local, and non-profit sector programs for climate change communication.
Anna Jane Joyner
Anna Jane Joyner is a climate story consultant and the founder and director of Good Energy. With over fifteen years of experience in climate communications, she is driven by a passion for storytelling - and helping people find courage in the face of climate change. Anna Jane has worked relentlessly to establish bridges between artists, musicians, faith communities, Southerners, young audiences, and the climate movement. As a strategist at the intersection of climate and entertainment, she produced film and music videos and organized over 300 global partners around a youth-mobilization campaign for the 2015 Paris Climate Summit. Her work has been featured by Rolling Stone, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Glamour, Deadline, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times, and more.
DAY 2
THURSDAY, march 30, 2023 - 5-9 pm - HQ L02 at 320 York Street & Virtual
Resilience in Action: Stories of Conservation and Resistance in Latin America
DAY 3
friDAY, march 31, 2023 - 11 am - 3 pm - HQ L02 at 320 York Street & Virtual
The Cost of Progress: Community Health in a Changing Climate
friDAY, march 31, 2023 - 5 pm - 9:30 pm - BURKE AUDITORIUM - 195 PROSPECT Street & virtual
Maintaining Giants: Ensuring our Forests Flourish
DAY 4
saturday, april 1, 2023 -5 pm - 9 pm - BURKE AUDITORIUM - 195 PROSPECT Street
The World of Water, What’s at Stake: Conservation Efforts at Sea and on Shore
The Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY), hosted by the Yale School of the Environment at Yale University, is one of America's premier student-run environmental film festivals. Every spring, EFFY showcases incisive, cutting-edge films that highlight the environmental and social issues of our time. For each screening there will be a panel discussion centered on one or more of the films of that day.
