As the Trump administration begins to formalize its opposition toward taking action against climate change, water pollution, and the depletion of non-renewable resources, a nearly decade-old, student-run environmental film festival in New Haven is staking its claim on its mission to support environmental education through artful, entertaining, and socially significant films.
The annual series, the Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY), kicks off its ninth year of programming this week, bringing five feature films and five shorts films to different venues around Yale’s campus and downtown New Haven. This year’s lineup of movies explores a diverse array of environmental issues, from the effects of climate change on U.S. national security to the fight to preserve seed biodiversity to the violence related to charcoal exploitation in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The festival runs from Wednesday, April 5 through Saturday, April 9. All of the screenings are free and open to the public.
Thomas Breen photo
Warady.
“The ideas of environmental degradation, climate change, and biodiversity are not something that people normally think about,” said Michael Warady, a third-year forestry school student who is one of the co-directors of this year’s EFFY, along with fellow forestry school student Anna Fiastro.
“And we’re in a position where we do this academically, so we probably think about these issues too much. But bringing these issues to the middle of downtown New Haven, putting them in a film, and reaching out to different community organizations are all really important steps in making sure that people know that this stuff is going on and that it does affect everyone.”
The festival opens on Wednesday night at the Yale Forestry School on Prospect Street with The Age of Consequences, a feature-length documentary directed by Jared P. Scott that looks at climate change from the perspective of national security and global political stability.
The questions that the movie raises are not just about how manmade activity changes the planet, but about how those changes to the planet affect the structure, and potential collapse, of manmade societies. Look no further, the movie points out, than the influence of a longstanding drought on the development of the Syrian civil war to understand the devastating political and humanitarian consequences of climate change.
Fiastro.
“We’re really interested in showing movies that tell environmental stories in different ways, so that different people from different backgrounds can relate to them,” Fiastro said. “The Age of Consequences offers a perspective that a lot of people have not heard: that the entire defense department is focusing resources, thought, and strategy into combating climate change as a global destabilizer. When you see the increasing defense budget, a lot of that money could be focused on climate and water-related issues.”
As they put together this year’s festival, Warady and Fiastro worked from the understanding that effective environmental education through film is not just a matter of the quality and subjects of the films themselves. It is also a matter of access.
For the first time in EFFY’s nine-year history, one of the screening nights will be taking place at a venue in downtown New Haven that is outside of Yale’s campus. On Thursday night, EFFY will be screening the feature-length documentary Seed: The Untold Story at the United Church on the Green at 270 Temple St.
The film, which tells the story of a group of farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers who are actively resisting biotech companies’ bid for a complete monopoly on seed production, will have Spanish-language subtitles as well as simultaneous Spanish audio translation for interested members of the audience.
Mayor Toni Harp will participate in a post-screening panel discussion with other local political and environmental leaders, and a number of environmental advocacy groups from Hartford and New Haven will be tabling in the church’s hallway before the screening begins. Some of the organizations slated to participate are New Haven Works, JUNTA for Progressive Action, New Haven Bike Month, Patagonia Provisions, and Billings Forge Community Works.
“For me, environmental issues and climate change are not political discussions,” Warady said. “They’re scientific fact. But regardless of what Washington, D.C. does, we still need to act locally. Connecticut is currently voting on quite a bit of environmental legislation. If the people up top are failing us, there are still ways to fight back. EFFY’s part of that fight.”
EFFY runs from Wednesday, April 5 through Saturday, April 8. For a complete list of EFFY titles, showtimes, and locations, go to http://effy.yale.edu/.