SF’s new green film fest Livable Planet announced
Livable Planet Film Festival
presented by SF IndieFest
April 22 – May 2, 2021
Presented virtually at livableplanet2021.eventive.org
San Francisco IndieFest is thrilled to announce the launch of the Livable Planet Film Festival, a new film festival kicking off on Earth Day 2021 that will bring 67 independent feature and short length films from around the world that focus on green and environmental issues in both fun and revealing ways.
Hoping to fill the void left by the permanent closure in 2020 of the San Francisco Green Film Festival, the Livable Planet Film Festival is interested in exploring all aspects of “environmental film” whether they be compelling documentaries, adventure films or narrative fiction films with environmental themes. Films have been curated into themed sections (such as Radical Females, LGBT Journeys and Animals Wild, Weird and Wonderful) which pair projects with complimentary subject matter to create a cinematic journey for our audiences.
Through this experience the festival hopes audiences can begin to engage with sustainable solutions to the problems facing the planet. In keeping with the IndieFest spirit of joie de vivre a fun mix of animated shorts and even a horror/comedy midnight movie have also been included in the program.
The complete Festival program is available at https://livableplanet2021.eventive.org.
FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
OPENING NIGHT FILM
LANDFALL
Director: Cecilia Aldarondo (United States)
Through shard-like glimpses of everyday life in post-Hurricane María Puerto Rico, Landfall is a cautionary tale for our times. Set against the backdrop of protests that toppled the United States colony’s governor in 2019, the film offers a prismatic portrait of collective trauma and resistance. While the devastation of María attracted a great deal of media coverage, the world has paid far less attention to the storm that preceded it: a 72-billion-dollar debt crisis crippling Puerto Rico well before the winds and waters hit.
Landfall examines the kinship of these two storms—one environmental, the other economic—juxtaposing competing utopian visions of recovery. Featuring intimate encounters with Puerto Ricans as well as the newcomers flooding the island, Landfall reflects on a question of contemporary global relevance: when the world falls apart, who do we become?
Producer Ines Hofmann Kanna lives in Oakland.
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
RED HEAVEN
Directors: Lauren DeFilippo and Katherine Gorringe (United States)
In preparation for the first human mission to Mars, six volunteers take part in the ultimate dress rehearsal, living inside a year-long NASA simulation to understand the effects of isolation on the human mind. A shockingly prescient film for the current moment, Red Heaven is a testament to the human ability to endure in body and spirit, despite isolation and uncertainty.
Directors Lauren DeFilippo and Katherine Gorringe are graduates of Stanford University.
CENTERPIECE FILM
ENTANGLED
Director: David Abel (United States)
This award winning film is about how climate change has accelerated a collision between one of the world’s most endangered species, North America’s most valuable fishery, and a federal agency mandated to protect both. The film chronicles the efforts to protect North Atlantic right whales from extinction, the impacts of those efforts on the lobster industry, and how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has struggled to balance the vying interests.
Entangled won a 2020 Jackson Wild award, known as the Oscars of nature films.
MIDNIGHT MOVIE
SLAXX
Director: Elza Kephart (Canada)
Pants shopping just got a little more dangerous with Slaxx, a comedy-horror film about jeans that kill, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect from a killer-pants story. A possessed pair of jeans is brought to life to punish the unscrupulous practices of a trendy, vapid clothing company. Shipped to the company’s flagship store, Slaxx proceeds to wreak carnage on staff locked in overnight to set up the new collection. It is up to Libby, an idealistic young salesclerk, to stop its bloody rampage.
FESTIVAL THEMES
POLITICS/ACTIVISM/CONSERVATION
BAATO
Directors: Lucas Millard and Kate Stryker (Nepal)
Every winter Mikma and her family travel by foot from their village deep in the Himalaya of Nepal to sell local medicinal plants in urban markets. This year, construction of a new highway to China has begun in their roadless valley, and things are never going to be the same.
ONCE YOU KNOW
Director: Emmanuel Cappellin (France)
Once you Know is the intimate journey of director Emmanuel Cappellin across the abyss of a world at the edge of climate-induced collapse.
OPERATION WOLF PATROL
Director: Joe Brown (United States)
Operation Wolf Patrol is a feature length documentary about eco-activist, Rod Coronado, and his attempt to end wolf hunting in the United States. Over the course of three years we watch Rod work to redefine his activism in an era– post 9/11, where some have called him an “eco-terrorist.”
OUR MOTHER’S LAND
Director: Leo Plunkett (United Kingdom/Indonesia)
Across Indonesia, hundreds of rural communities are in conflict with corporations seeking control of their resources. When they push back, they face the wrath of the state.
THE BURNING FIELD
Director: Justin Weinrich (Ghana)
In this immersive portrait of life in an environmental wasteland, four young Ghanaians struggle to navigate work and relationships over a single day in Agbogbloshie, the largest e-waste dump on earth.
THE CONSCIENCE OF CLOTHING
Director: Patrick Kohl (Germany/Cambodia)
Inspired by welcoming encounters with locals, The Conscience of Clothing is an authentic snapshot of an industry that accounts for the livelihood and everyday reality of roughly a fifth of the country’s population.
ADVENTURE/SPORT/ARTS
OVERLAND
Directors: Revere La Noue and Elisabeth Haviland James (United States/Czech Republic)
Overland follows the stories of three falconers each facing a unique set of challenges as they pursue their passion for the ancient art of partnering with birds of prey.
CLIMBING BLIND
Director: Alastair Lee (United Kingdom)
As a life long climber, Jesse flies in the face of adversity training for world cup events and attempting to be the first blind person to make a ‘non-sight’ lead of the iconic Old Man of Hoy sea stack in Scotland.
EYE OF THE STORM
Director: Anthony Baxter (United Kingdom)
James Morrison, one of Britain’s finest landscape artists, faces his greatest challenge as his eyesight begins to fail him
RADICAL FEMALES (shorts program)
LGBT JOURNEYS (shorts program)
ADVENTURE SHORTS (shorts program)
OCEANS/RIVERS/POLAR
RIVER TALES
Director: Julie Schroell (Nicaragua)
While a Chinese business-man wants to take control of the interoceanic route in Nicaragua, actor and teacher Yemn creates a play with the local kids to reflect on their history, their identity and the country‘s future.
THE LONG COAST
Director: Ian Cheney (United States)
In a series of lyrical portraits, The Long Coast illuminates the stories of Maine’s seafolk, those whose lives and livelihoods are inextricably connected to the ocean.
THE CRAB SEASON
Director: Martin Benoist (France)
In France, behind the cliff of Etretat, Christophe, who is visually impaired, fishes crabs and lobsters by hand, in an almost lunar space, where no one ventures. At his side, we experience what Christophe feels, starting with the beauty of this landscape.
SOCKEYE SALMON. RED FISH
Directors: Vladislav Grishin and Dmitry Shpilenok (Russian Federation)
Sockeye, a species of wild salmon, is born in Kamchatkan waters and spends its entire life in the Pacific Ocean. Only once does it return to fresh waters – to give offspring, start the circle of life, and die. It is an inexhaustible resource that feeds billions of people on the planet, restored every year. But soon, we may find ourselves facing the unimaginable: humans will exhaust the inexhaustible.
THE TWO POLES (shorts program)
FLORA & FAUNA/FOOD & AGRICULTURE
TO WHICH WE BELONG
Directors: Pamela Tanner Boll and Lindsay Richardson (United States)
To Which We Belong is a documentary that highlights farmers and ranchers leaving behind conventional practices that are no longer profitable or sustainable.
WHAT SHOULD I PUT IN MY COFFEE?
Director: Jon Lanthier (United States)
What Should I Put in My Coffee? is the world’s first feature-length documentary about coffee creamer. Using this seemingly light-hearted topic as a starting point, the film explores big ideas about farming and animal agriculture, the environment, and the role of consumers in our current food system.
PUSHED UP THE MOUNTAIN
Director: Julia Haslett (China)
Pushed up the Mountain is a poetic and emotionally intimate film about plants and the people who care for them.
ANIMALS WILD AND WONDERFUL (shorts program)
STORIES FROM AFRICA (shorts program)
BAY AREA STORIES AND STORYTELLERS
LANDFALL (Producer Ines Hofmann Kanna lives in Oakland.)
RED HEAVEN (Directors Lauren DeFilippo and Katherine Gorringe are graduates of Stanford University.)
WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM (Director Larry Laverty lives in Oakland, Director Isaac Pingree lives in Alameda and Narrator Peter Coyote lives in Mill Valley.)
MOSS MAN (Directors Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer live in San Francisco, Director Quinn Costello lives in Oakland.)
TULE ELK – THE KILLING OF A NATIVE SPECIES (The subject of the film takes place in Point Reyes.)
THE CHAPEL (Director John Antonelli lives in Sausalito.)
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT LIVABLE PLANET FILM FESTIVAL
The Livable Planet Film Festival is produced by Jeff Ross and Chris Metzler.
For more information and tickets, visit www.sfindie.com or call 415-662-3378.
Regular film tickets are $10. Festival passes are $45-220.
All films will screen between April 22 and May 2 at sfindie.com.
