Three fine documentary films headline this summer’s Green Film series sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County. Mark your calendars now for June 6, July 17 and Aug. 13 and plan to come see these important stories on the big screen and have a chance to discuss these subjects with your neighbors. This will be LWVMC’s 13th summer of Green Film showings and discussions. All films will be screened at 7 p.m. in Korb Classroom in the Wabash College Fine Arts Center.
“A Crack in the Mountain” brings viewers a stunningly filmed look at the Hang San Doong caves in Vietnam. What is thought to be the largest cave system by volume on the planet was only discovered in 1991 when it was stumbled upon by a jungle logger. It was only surveyed in 2009. It does not echo other caves but rather has its own rainforest, its own ecosystem, its own weather. Phil Hoad writing for The Guardian notes that Alistair Evans’ film contains “stupefying shots of towering limestone buttes, skylight dolines, and sodden subterranean rainforests” that look like “something from Avatar.” It is a marvel of filmmaking.
Hang Son Doong is located in Quang Bing province. It is Vietnam’s poorest, leveled by American bombing and barely redeveloped until the l990s. Those who live there, so recently emerging from destruction and deep poverty, see economic promise in monetizing the caves. Businesses and the Vietnamese government are considering the possibility of cable cars running through it. Others only see value in preserving this wonder of the world in its natural state. Come see the wonder of Hang San Doong and enter into a story millions of years in the making.
On July 17, return to Korb Classroom to see “Ecosophia,” a film by John Michael Greer, that will pause our thinking and make us wonder about how we got to where we are. “Ecosophia” means the passing on of knowledge over many generations about the specifics of place; of how to live well in a place, deeply understanding the climate, soil, and natural communities of that spot. This localized knowledge is what has allowed us to live sustainably on the land as a species for thousands of years … before we chose different paths … The film explores how our fascination with growth, energy, and manmade materials, and so forth and how this myopic attention has become a crisis for us because as Stuart Hill, a permaculturist, notes, “We tend to think of development and even our spiritual traditions as ‘limitless,’ but nature has limits and … as a species ... we are utterly dependent on that natural world.”
The third Green Film, “Food, Inc. 2” brings us together to think about eating. As Alice Waters says, “Food, Inc. forever changed the way people think about what they eat. Fifteen years later, “Food Inc. 2” is just as urgent and essential.
Directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo, this sequel to the first Food Inc. revealed more major problems with industrialized food production than any of us wanted to know — but maybe needed to know. Any viewer of that film knows that while supermarkets stay well stocked (though customers always seem to yearn for even more variety and higher quality), most people have scant insight into how that grocery store food is made and what it does to our health.
“Food, Inc. 2” does point out how baby formula shortages and cramped meat packing plants as Covid-19 hotspots — created crises we experienced during the pandemic — needn’t have happened if our food industry were “lass prone to gigantism.” Despite the reality of these and other frightening events that affect millions of lives, “Food, Inc. 2” is a more hopeful film. Two of its producers, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, note the wide proliferation of grass-fed beef and Farmers’ Markets in recent years. The filmmakers give us positive directions to look: work to enforce antitrust policy, support fair-labor practices, and, especially, find new ways to return to time-tested farming methods.
Join a group of community members for all or any of these free showings. How does this all apply to our community? Have you considered greening up your world? Did you know about Friends of Sugar Creek or Montgomery County Community Growers? Maybe you’re interested in how the new owners of the Sportsmen’s Club are forwarding conservation practices. Do you know about NICHES or Nature Conservancy? See you this summer in Korb Classroom on the Wabash campus for some excellent movie nights and lively discussion.
The League of Women Voters, a non-partisan, multi-issue organization encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase public understanding of major policy issues and influences public policy through education and advocacy. All men and women are invited to join the LWV where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement. For information, visit the website www.lwvmontcoin.org or the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, IN Facebook page.
