Connie Spreen of Experimental Station and Liz Lyon of Plant Chicago.
By Susan Messer
One Earth Film Festival takes particular care to attend to the collaborative potential between film, venue and community when planning screening events. The match doesn't happen haphazardly. The sensitive pairing of particular films with venues and communities surfaced again and again during conversations with three venue partners—Elio DeArrudah at Universidad Popular, Liz Lyon at Plant Chicago, and Connie Spreen at the Experimental Station.
Mariposas Land in Little Village
“Let’s just watch the movie together,” says Elio DeArrudah, executive director of Universidad Popular, about the OEFF film his organization--a university for the people—will screen on at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 11. He’s talking about “Ay Mariposa”--a story of three people in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas whose lives are upended by plans to build a US-Mexico border wall. And this, set against the daily battle for survival of the butterfly, la mariposa, in a landscape where more than 95 percent of its habitat is gone and much of what remains lies directly in the path of the wall. After the film, Marianna Treviño Wright, Director of the National Butterfly Center, will be available for a Q&A.
Universidad Popular at 2801 S. Hamlin Ave., in Chicago.
This is the first time Universidad Popular, located in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, has been a venue for an OEFF screening. In previous years, the Little Village branch of the Chicago Public Library screened OEFF films, but this year the dates didn’t work out.
“So the library reached out to us,” Elio says, “to see if we could host. They thought it would be a good fit. And it is, because many of the people who come to our community center are casualties of climate change--driven out of their homes in Central America and Mexico. Moreover, Little Village is a very high-density neighborhood, with little green space and some serious environmental challenges.”
Elio mentions the coal power plant that used to sit on the fringes of the neighborhood--a source of air pollution and respiratory illness among seniors and children--and the 12 years of work the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization did to close that plant. “Our community members understand the impact of the environment on their lives, and the importance of community action.”
Just a few of the people whose lives have been touched by English as a Second Language classes at Universidad Popular.
Universidad Popular, founded in 1972, is a nonprofit focused on promoting community empowerment through learning. Since its founding, its staff members have taught skills, such as English, health, and digital and financial literacy, free of charge to members of Chicago’s Latino community. And it also assists local causes such as a campaign to legalize the area’s many street vendors and to shut down that coal-burning plant. About 20 years ago, Universidad Popular bought a building that used to be a bar and converted it to a community center. The room where the film will be shown was the bar’s dance hall, and it can accommodate over 150 people.
“We asked to screen ‘Ay Mariposa,’” says Elio, “because plenty of people in Little Village know that border area and will relate to the film. They understand that there are no environmental sanctuaries, no places safe from developers. Climate change is a reality, the environment needs to be protected, and we need to find ways to protect it. This kind of film can open new horizons for residents in this community, and get them excited about what they can do to help. We cannot afford to despair, because then we will be really lost.”
“Ay Mariposa”
Wednesday, March 11, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Universidad Popular
2801 S. Hamlin Ave., Chicago
Reserve tickets here.
Plant Chicago meets Easter Island
At 3 p.m. Saturday, March 14, you can attend a screening of “Eating Up Easter,” a film about Easter Island (or Rapa Nui)—the tiny, barren but famed archaeological site in the South Pacific that is home to the monumental stone heads called moai. As tourism has skyrocketed on Easter Island, the indigenous culture and the island’s fragile environment have suffered. The film suggests ways forward for communities worldwide in balancing growth and sustainability.
The film will be screened at Plant Chicago in Back of the Yards, a nonprofit that develops and shares innovative methods for sustainable food production, energy conservation and material reuse.
“We chose this film,” says Liz Lyon, Plant Chicago’s small business and circular economy manager, “because it focuses on materials, including single-use plastics, that come in with tourists—people who don’t live in that ecosystem—and it also focuses on the people who do live there and have to deal with the waste.”
That is, the film shows how communities can repurpose waste in innovative ways, thereby developing circular economies—an important focus of Plant Chicago. A circular economy is one in which waste from one process—in this case, Easter Island tourism--is repurposed as input for another process.
Over the years, the staff of Plant Chicago have attended OEFF films, and participated as action partners, particularly around films on the topic of food waste. The space they used to inhabit couldn’t accommodate a screening. But now they’re in a new space, a firehouse dating from the early 1900s, and they’re excited to host.
Rendering of parts of the interior of The Firehouse by Maria Bergh.
“We’ll show the film in what used to be the main engine hall,” Liz says. “It’s a flexible space that we can configure for bigger or smaller events. Volunteers and staff have done a lot of work to get the building ready, including installing an aquaponic system.” An aquaponics system is a form of agriculture that combines raising fish in tanks where soiless plants are also growing. The nutrient-rich water produced by the fish provides a natural fertilizer for the plants, while the plants help purify the water for the fish—a perfect example of a circular economy.
But back to the film: Lyon notes that the images of waste can be disheartening. “How can I ever hope to solve anything like that?” she says. “But the programming around the film can transport the global issues to a local context and present things you can do that involve your own local ecosystem.”
For example, after the film, Plant Chicago will host a panel of local activists and experts to discuss policy and scientific research around plastic pollution in water, the new proposed city ordinance to ban single-use plastic in restaurants, ways to prevent or clean up plastic pollution, and ways to get involved with such initiatives.
“We can use the film to look at things occurring all around the world but then bring it back to our local community.”
“Eating Up Easter”
Saturday, March 14, 3 to 5 p.m.
Plant Chicago @ The Firehouse
4459 S. Marshfield Ave., First Floor, Chicago
Reserve tickets here.
Bikes! and Bikes!
“Our practice,” says Connie Spreen, executive director of the Experimental Station, “is to build a variety of projects--bike culture, food culture, arts--within one space, and see how they intersect with one another and what they generate, as in an ecosystem. We don’t always know what will come of it.”
But good things are likely to come of the OEFF screening at 6:30 p.m., Sat., March 7, when you can see “Motherload,”a documentary about a new mom and her quest to understand and promote the cargo bike movement in a gas-powered, digital and divided world.
Experimental Station
That’s a graceful fit for Experimental Station, located on the South Side of Chicago, because one of its projects is Blackstone Bicycle Works--a community bike shop that provides educational and vocational opportunities to youth from some of Chicago's most underserved neighborhoods. It’s structured as a retail, full-service bike shop that offers an "earn and learn" curriculum, including year-round on-the-job training in mechanics and repair, customer service and management, and peer-education. Participation is voluntary, free of charge, and open to youth ages 8 to 18.
And that’s not the only reason Experimental Station chose to screen “Motherload.” Says Connie Spreen: “This is our third or fourth time as a venue for OEFF, but I especially connected with this film. Because 20 years ago, I was one of those moms who was looking for a way to transport my kids that did not require getting in a car. So I hauled them in a bike trailer. It’s especially doable in a city like Chicago because it’s flat.” Meaning no hills.
But, she says, “It didn’t feel as urgent back then. Twenty years ago it was more a personal lifestyle decision. Now it’s a much larger responsibility, to look at how we do things, how we individually contribute in a meaningful way to combating climate change. We have to think seriously about what we’re leaving our kids. We all have to do things differently now, bring people together, see what develops.”
Experimental Station has a large project space used for all kinds of programming--meetings, arts events, theater --and that’s where they’ll screen “Motherload.” The space can accommodate about 100 people, and they’ve had that many attendees at past OEFF events.
Last year, after their OEFF screening, the audience broke into small groups, and each group was given a few questions to consider.
“When you see a film, or have any experience, you want to be able to talk about it. If you never get that opportunity, to think about what you’ve seen, you miss out,” Connie says. “In a small-group discussion, you may be exposed to completely different perspectives, ideas you’d never considered yourself.”
Like using the car less and the bike more: “This is something people can actually do,” Connie says. “If you’re hauling your kids to school, to the grocery store, on a bike, every trip you take enables you to be in better shape, and is contributing to something positive for our world.”
Saturday, March 7, 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Experimental Station
6100 S. Blackstone Ave., Chicago
Reserve tickets here.
