The “Best of” the Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival in Ottawa

Written by guest blogger Denise Deby, who writes on local and global social and environmental issues.

More great environmental films are coming to Ottawa. The Canadian Museum of Nature is presenting the “best of” the Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival from April 5-8, 2011.

The festival includes both long and short films and videos (here in alphabetical order):

• Belly Up (Canada / 2009), on the possibility of the extinction of wild salmon on Canada’s west coast due to logging and salmon farming;

• Bulletin météo (Canada / 2007), on communities around the world whose lives are being affected by global warming;

• Carpe Diem (Canada / 2010), “a stylish short opera about environmental disaster” in which the vice-president of a fictitious oil company “is assailed by the environmental logic of a two-headed fish”;

• The 4th Revolution (Germany / 2010), on energy autonomy and how changing from fossil and nuclear fuels to renewable energy is not only necessary but also possible;

• Green Heroes (Canada / 2010), featuring singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer as the co-founder for Protecting Escarpment Rural Land (PERL) in Halton, Ontario;

• Héen Tàak (Canada), which explores the wilderness and species of Alaska’s inside passage;

• Himalaya Alert (The Netherlands / 2009), on climate journalist Bernice Notenboom’s trip to the Everest summit where she reports on the effects of rising water levels due to climate change;

• Home for Hawksbill (USA / 2010), on how neighbouring nations have come together to save the hawksbill turtles living off the coast of the Solomon Islands;

• Queen of the Sun (USA / 2010), “a poetic and passionate homage to bees and beekeepers” facing colony collapse disorder;

• Water on the Table (Canada / 2010), following Maude Barlow, National Chairperson for the Council of Canadians and former Senior Advisor on Water at the United Nations General Assembly, as she works to have water declared a human right rather than a private commodity;

• We Live by the River (USA/Canada / 2010), on how the Inter-Tribal Watershed Council brought together the indigenous nations and communities of the Yukon River to heal and protect the river.

Each night of the festival will also feature a guest speaker, including Water on the Table director Liz Marshall, Héen Tàak director Nathalie Lasselin, mountain-climber and expedition guide Jean-François Carrey, and Joshua Bishop from The Sustainable Oyster and Fish Supply (Whalesbone Restaurant).

The festival is presented by the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada in partnership with Toronto’s Planet in Focus Film Festival.

The festival schedule, detailed film descriptions and ticket prices can be found at nature.ca. Passes are available at the museum’s reception desk or by phone at 613-566-4791. The Museum of Nature is at 240 McLeod Street (corner of Metcalfe).