Northern Alameda County Group

Sierra Club/Sustainable Peralta Environmental Film Festival

Tuesday - Sunday, Jan. 16 - 21, at the Laney College Theatre in Oakland, 900 Fallon Street (by Lake Merritt BART station). From downtown Oakland, take 11th Street East. Laney College is directly east of the BART station. Go onto the campus, and ascend a ramp or stairs to the upper (plaza) level. The theatre building is in the middle of the campus, adjacent to the cafeteria.

Here's your chance to see some exceptional movies that will never be box-office smashes.

Sierra Club Productions (a nationwide Sierra Club initiative) is promoting "environmental film fests" to expose as many people as possible to carefully selected movies featuring themes of environment and conservation issues. The Northern Alameda County Group was coincidentally working on organizing just such an event ourselves. Due to this conjunction, we can now present the Sierra Club/Sustainable Peralta Environmental Film Festival.

The goals of the festival are threefold: to raise public consciousness of environmental issues, to bring a Sierra Club message to the public, and to help raise money for a study-abroad trip being organized by our partner, Nehanda Imara, an instructor at Merritt College.

Schedule of films

Tue., Jan. 16. The day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, we celebrate examples of movies promoting environmental and social justice.

Introduction (7 pm): "Hood News" - a Peralta student movie (10 - 15 minutes).

"Clean Air Campaign" The impacts of youth and Communities for a Better Environment leading the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to reject an inadequate Clean Air Plan in 2005 (20 minutes).

Main Feature: "This Black Soil" - an inspiring and provocative new film on the successful struggle of Bayview, VA, a small and severely impoverished rural African-American community, to pursue a new vision of prosperity (58 mins).

Followed by panel discussion with Keith Carson of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and West Oakland community activist Margaret Gordon.

Thu., Jan. 18. Community-based environmentalism.

First feature (6 pm): "Being Caribou". From April - September 2003, filmmaker Leanne Allison and wildlife biologist Karsten Heuer and a 15-inch George Bush replica doll traveled on foot with the Porcupine Caribou Herd from Old Crow, Yukon, Canada, to the caribou calving grounds in Alaska, and then a week later, on to the steps of the U.S. Capitol to convey their (and George's) incredible story to the Senate. (60 minutes)

Second feature: (7:15 pm) "The Power of Community" - an uplifting film on how, when the Cuban people lost access to Soviet oil in the early 1990s, they survived through cooperation, conservation, and community (50 minutes).

Followed by discussion with Oakland organic food growers/activists.

Sat., Jan. 20. Oil, energy, and global warming. George Bush admitted we are "addicted to oil". What are some of the factors behind this addiction? What is it costing us?

First feature (5 pm): "Out of Balance" - a film showing the influence of the largest company in the world on governments, the media, and citizens, and what can be done about global warming. "Out of Balance" does not just critique ExxonMobil, but also offers challenging, large-scale ideas for the global social changes that must take place if there's any chance of having a livable planet for future generations (60 minutes).

Second feature (6:30 pm): "Kilowatt Ours". Filmmaker Jeff Barrie takes viewers on a journey from the coal mines of West Virginia to the solar-panel fields of Florida as he explores the causes behind America's staggering energy consumption, as well as conservation solutions that we can all implement (60 minutes).

Followed by panel discussion with Tom Kelley, Kyoto USA, and others.

Sun., Jan. 21. Protecting native lands.

First feature (4 pm): "Tales of the San Joaquin" - following the San Joaquin River from its source in the Sierra Nevada south of Yosemite to its merger with San Francisco Bay. Along the way we meet a colorful group of people with firsthand knowledge of the river called by some "the hardest-working river in America" and by others "the most abused" (32 minutes). Preceded by an introduction and followed by a question-and-answer session with director Christopher Beaver.

Second feature (5:15 pm): "Homeland" - four portraits of native action - the inspiring story of four battles in which Native American activists are fighting to preserve their land, sovereignty, and culture (88 minutes).

For more information contact Kent Lewandowski, Northern Alameda County Group chair, at (510) 625-5831 or email kentlewan -at- yahoo.com or Nehanda Imara at (510) 569-2023 or nehanda2509 -at- yahoo.com

Northern Alameda County Group

The Northern Alameda County Group represents members from Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Piedmont, and San Leandro. We meet on the fourth Monday of the month at 7 pm at 525 29th St. (at Telegraph Avenue) in Oakland, at the back of the red church, St. Augustine's.

Group chair is Kent Lewandowski at (510)547-1207 or kentlewan -at- yahoo.com

Conservation chair is Arthur Boone at (510)910-6451 or ARBoone3 -at- yahoo.com

The Group focuses on making our cities more livable so that people will prefer to live in them, rather than in housing projects in distant green lands. Some recent and continuing issues are:

• Oakland Uptown proposed park and streetscape;
• reuse of Oakland Army Base;
• Oak to Ninth proposal for the Oakland Estuary;
• Berkeley Creek Ordinance;
• Downtown Berkeley UC hotel complex;
• promotion of multi-family housing in Alameda;
• air quality in West Oakland;
• development on Telegraph transit corridor.