For an environmental documentary junkie like me, Monday night at Sundance was a little slice of heaven: After catching the world premiere of Mark Kitchell’s A Fierce Green Fire, I sprinted across town to see The Atomic States of America, a powerful film about nuclear energy that draws from Kelly McMasters‘ memoir, Welcome to Shirley. Then dinner at an all-night Salt Lake City diner, topped off with a 1 a.m. viewing of newly Oscar-nominated The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom. (See yesterday’s post for more on that documentary short.)
If you’ve been following my reports, you know that I’ve been tracking Kitchell’s progress on A Fierce Green Fire since last June, when he was struggling to finish the environmental movement epic and raise enough dough to keep the project afloat. (See “Lights, Camera, Activism!,” Winter 2012.) Last night provided a triumphant conclusion to the story.
The previous night, Kitchell had given me a quick update. “We ripped 25 minutes out of the final version,” he told me at a party for the film hosted by Dwell magazine. I had doubts about the hefty trim, but at the premiere it felt like he had actually beefed up the gripping action scenes -- Paul Watson and his Greenpeace pals dodging harpoons, Lois Gibbs holding EPA officials hostage in Love Canal -- and lost the laggy bits.
Kitchell brought his young daughter Lola up on stage -- “She’s lived her entire life with this film,” he said -- and introduced a special guest: Lois Gibbs, the hellraising housewife who led the fight against pollution at Love Canal. It was nothing short of amazing to see her. (That's Gibbs and Kitchell together in the picture at right.)
For my generation, Love Canal is as iconic and historic an environmental battle as the Hetch Hetchy dam. The film’s grainy color footage of Gibbs, then 26(!), rising to the moment and forcing President Carter to act on the toxic catastrophe, reminded me of why I love writing about the environment -- and about the sheer power of courage.
And Gibbs hasn’t left the fight. She now runs the nonprofit Center for Health, Environment & Justice, based in Falls Church, Virginia. As I left the theater, she was talking with a young woman inspired by her history. I caught a phrase from Gibbs: “...that’s what we’ve got to do, we gotta kick ass...”
She said things about hope, too. But sometimes you need ass kickers like Gibbs to force power to move.
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Scenes from Sundance: Who says rich people won’t take the bus? For the two weeks of the film festival, Sundance’s free public bus system turns Park City into a transportation geek’s nirvana. The buses run like clockwork, volunteers answer questions at every stop, the drivers wait for stragglers, and wealthy patrons seem to have no problem climbing aboard. The packed bus I was on last night buzzed with cheery conversation. “Have you seen Ethel?” one woman asked a stranger. “No, but we just saw Love Free or Die,” her new friend said. “Just wonderful.” (Ethel: doc about the life of Ethel Kennedy. Love Free: doc about New Hampshire’s Episcopal Church, which elected an openly gay man as a bishop.) In fact, the biggest problem at Sundance isn’t getting around -- it’s finding time to eat. “I envy your dinner,” one well-dressed bus rider said to a man munching a gas-station burger on his lap. She wasn’t the only one. … Overheard conversation last night: “I bought these tickets in October, before the lineup was even announced. It’s always a crapshoot. So I go with documentaries, because they’re usually interesting. You get a bad artsy drama, and it’s bad.” … Celebrity sightings are a dime a dozen around here, but for some reason the one guy everybody’s seen is Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock. “I saw him today,” one woman ahead of me in line said. “Very tall, very attractive.” My theory: It’s hard not to get noticed with that bushy mustache. … Came here half expecting a status-obsessed party scene out of Entourage, but I’m finding that as long as you stay away from Park City’s Main Street after 10 p.m., the town is surprisingly jerk-free. Lot of smart, passionate filmmakers and filmgoers here to work and see the work, not fill up suitcases with free swag. The party district does rage until 3:30 every morning (or so my bus driver tells me), but that leaves plenty of parking and elbow room at all the morning screenings.
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