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Overview

Welcome to the 18th Annual Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital

As we enter a new decade of the 21st century, the Environmental Film Festival comes of age, marking 18 eventful years in Washington, D.C. with our biggest and most ambitious Festival yet. This year the Festival is proud to present 155 diverse and thought-provoking films, including 66 Washington, D.C., United States and World premieres, that celebrate the wonder of the natural world and illuminate the growing challenges to life on earth.

The 2010 Festival explores the vital connections between food and the environment. What we eat is essential to our health and wellbeing; how food is produced and transported to our tables affects the condition of our planet. Starting from the ground up, Dirt! The Movie and Soil in Good Heart focus on earth’s most underrated source of fertility and its key role in creating nourishing food. Our pre-Festival screening for D.C. public and charter school students, What’s On Your Plate? investigates the sources of our food while Lunch looks specifically at school food programs. Food Fight traces the birth of the country’s sustainable organic food movement in California during the 1960s, led by Alice Waters. Fresh and Ingredients celebrate today’s farmers, chefs and business people who are creating a new food culture in America. Terra Madre highlights the contributions of Italy’s Slow Food movement and HomeGrown spotlights an urban family farm in Pasadena, California. Nora! profiles Washington restaurateur, Nora Pouillon, founder of the nation’s first certified organic restaurant.

Challenges to our food supply are illustrated in films that investigate the decline of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, the damage caused by salmon farms and the search for seeds that can withstand the impact of global warming. “E2-Transport”: Food Miles makes the case for local food production and consumption. Seeds of Hunger warns of an impending global food crisis while the searing documentary Garapa gives hunger a human face. Enhancing the Festival’s screenings are discussions with more than 150 filmmakers and special guests whose knowledge and expertise add immeasurably to our understanding of our world. Renowned writer, naturalist and explorer Peter Matthiessen (appearing in person and on film) examines the impact of climate change on Arctic cultures. Distinguished art historian John Walsh traces the evolution of the sculpture garden. Emerging Brazilian filmmaker Otavio Juliano’s film The Music Tree receives the Festival’s first annual Polly Krakora Award for artistry in film.

Additional films address the environmental implications of such diverse subjects as the current natural gas drilling boom, mountaintop removal and the mysterious disappearance of frogs, while others point to the success of businesses that are adopting green practices and stimulating the growth of clean, renewable energy.

At the beginning of a new decade in a young century, the escalating threats to our environment are tempered by the emergence of creative solutions. We hope that you will join us this March at the Environmental Film Festival to gain fresh insights, through the power of film, into the problems and the progress being made to protect life on our planet.

The 2010 Festival is dedicated to the memory of Sherry Geyelin (1925-2009)
and Polly Krakora (1926-2009).

For general inquiries, please e-mail info@envirofilmfest.org.

Staff

Peter O'Brien, Executive Director, Email ( more )
Peter works on multiple aspects of the Festival, including film review and selection, program organization, and fundraising and development. His professional experience prior to EFF includes work as a production assistant for a documentary filmmaker, and project management for a non-profit dealing with urban affordable housing. Peter holds an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A. in English from Harvard.
Christopher Head, Managing Director, Email ( more )
Christopher works on all aspects of programming for the Festival, including researching, screening and selecting films and working with filmmakers, venues, and other collaborating partners to produce a successful Festival. He maintains all the Festival's bookkeeping and helps with general office management. He graduated from American University with a B.A. in Film & Media Arts.
Helen Strong, Public Affairs Director, Email ( more )
Helen is a public relations consultant in the Washington, D.C. area. For the past ten years she has worked as a publicist for the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital. From 1984 to 1990 she wrote and consulted for the World Wildlife Fund and prior to that she served as Public Relations Officer for the Smithsonian Institution’s Resident Associate Program from 1976 to 1982. Helen holds an M.S. degree from Boston University’s School of Public Communications and a B.A. from Smith College.
Georgina Owen, Associate Director, Email ( more )
Georgina has worked with the Festival program since 1995, selecting films, editing the printed schedule and contacting participating organizations to plan and develop their programs. A life-long Washingtonian, she has worked in the arts and antiques business and has been actively involved with community organizations including Jubilee Jobs and the Georgetown Ministry Center. She also operates a clothing and accessory design business.
Maribel Guevara, Program Associate, Email ( more )
Anne-Clemence Owen, Program Associate, Email ( more )
Christa Carignan, Development Associate, Email ( more )
Owen Davies, Program Assistant, Email ( more )
Kaitlin Whitman, Program Assistant, Email ( more )
Miranda Lievsay, Festival Intern, Email ( more )
Flo Stone, President & Founder, Email ( more )

Flo Stone is President & Founder of the annual Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital, which she started in 1993. Previously she worked on public programming for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for 15 years. There she initiated the Margaret Mead Film Festival and served as its Co-Chair from 1977-84. She directed West Side Day, an annual community festival at the Museum from 1970-1976. In 1986, Flo was Film Chair for the Smithsonian's National Forum on Biodiversity and that same year she established the Earthwatch Film Awards for documentaries, presented annually at National Geographic through 2009.

Flo authored filmographies for the US Festival of Indonesia (1990) and the Ocean Planet exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History (1995). She has served on film juries in Washington DC, as well as in Missoula, Montana and Telluride, Colorado. Internationally, she has been on juries at the Green Festival in Korea, FICA in Brazil, Cinemambiente in Italy, and CineEco in Portugal. She has been a member of the Advisory Committee of the Margaret Mead Film Festival since 1992, was an evaluator for Art on Film 1995-98, and chaired juries for American Film & Video Festival 1986-1992. She is a graduate of Vassar College and has a Certificate in Arts Administration from Harvard.

Board of Directors

Caroline Gabel, Chair
Dan M. Martin, Treasurer
Anita Herrick, Secretary
Flo Stone, President & Founder
Charles Lord, Chair Emeritus
Adriana Casas
Marion Guggenheim
Annie Kaempfer
Josie Merck
Joan Murray
Dane Nichols
Nora Pouillon
Gary Rahl
Carole Rifkind
Roger Stone
Max Williamson

Advisory Committee

Celia Crawford, Chair
Katie Carpenter
Harriett Crosby
Alice Day
Lincoln Day
Anne Emmet
Mark Epstein
Nelse Greenway
Grace Guggenheim
Amy King
Gay Lord
Mary McCracken
Tim McEnery
Greg McGruder
Helen McNeill
Chris Palmer
Peggy Parsons
Susan Rappaport
Deborah Rothberg
Edith Schafer
Ev Shorey
Joan Shorey
Georgiana Warner
Cristy West
Terry Williams
Catherine Wyler

"EFF is a unique Festival that presents fascinating movies on so many subjects, and lets you explore hidden venues in our city at the same time." - Catherine Wyler, Artistic Director, High Falls Film Festival