Six original films exploring the theme of sustainability will be featured during the 2008 Notre Dame Forum Film Festival to be held Sept. 19 (Friday) at 7p.m. in the Browning Cinema of the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
Introduced in support of the Notre Dame Forum, focused this year on sustainable energy, the juried festival of short films will showcase the work of primarily student filmmakers, with Notre Dame faculty and staff associated with the forum, the Office of Sustainability, and the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre serving as judges.
The festival committee opened the festival to filmmakers nationally “to encourage action, and to engage people in the topic of sustainable energy,” said Jon Vickers, managing director of the performing arts center, which also is planning screenings of commercially recognized documentaries about energy and sustainability, including “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
The winning film will be announced during the festival screening; the top prize is a Macbook computer with Final Cut Express, professional film editing software.
The winner will be identified among the following:
- “A Convenient Truth,” by Notre Dame alumnus Dan Moor, follows Christopher Gallo, a California native who, upon suffering through Midwest winters while attending Notre Dame, embarks on a quest to warm up South Bend by harnessing the powers of global warming. The film takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to wastefulness and the concerns of global warming.
- “Addicted to Energy,” by Notre Dame students Michelle Carlisle and Ryan Geldermann, is a mosaic of our daily lives as Americans in constant motion and a constant state of consumption.
- “Living in Community,” by Phillip Davis, focuses on the commitment of members of the Dancing Rabbit Eco-Village in Missouri to develop sustainable lifestyles.
- “The Little Fan,” by Notre Dame student Shannon Mathers, explores wind as a source of energy through the story of a small fan threatened by the arrival of an air conditioner who sets upon a mission to save himself.
- “All it Takes,” by University staff member Daniel Clark, reveals how renewable energies combined with individual efforts can slow down and stop our detrimental impact.
- “Architecturally Addressing the Problem of Decommissioned and Abandoned Offshore Oil Platforms,” by John Kelly, explores redevelopment steps that can put abandoned offshore oil platforms to use.
Other short films on the sustainability theme will augment the six entries to round out the program.
“Sustainable Energy: A Notre Dame Forum” will take place Sept. 24 from 3 to 5p.m. in the Joyce Center on the Notre Dame campus and will explore how charting pathways to a sustainable energy future is emerging as one of the world’s great challenges. It also will examine underlying concerns, including technological, environmental, economic, political and geopolitical issues, as well as social justice and ethical considerations.
Forum panelists include Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, General Electric Co. chairman and chief executive officer Jeff Immelt, Sustainable South Bronx founder Majora Carter and Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The discussion will be moderated by Anne Thompson, chief environmental affairs correspondent for NBC News and a 1979 Notre Dame graduate.
For more information about the forum, visit http://enlighten.nd.edu/ on the Web.
Originally published by at newsinfo.nd.edu on September 05, 2008.