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PA IPL Film Festival 2024
September 26 @ 6:00 pm - September 28 @ 8:00 pm
Date: Thursday, September 26th
Time: 6PM
Title: Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai
Description:
TAKING ROOT tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy—a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.
Synopsis:
TAKING ROOT: THE VISION OF WANGARI MAATHAI tells the inspiring story of the Green Belt Movement of Kenya and its founder Wangari Maathai, the first environmentalist and first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The U.S.- educated Professor Maathai discovered her life’s work by reconnecting with the rural women with whom she had grown up. Their lives had become intolerable: they were walking longer distances for firewood, clean water was scarce, the soil was disappearing from their farms, and their children were suffering from malnutrition. Maathai thought to herself, “Well, why not plant trees?” She soon discovered that tree planting had a ripple effect of empowering change. Countering the devastating cultural effects of colonialism, Maathai began teaching communities about self-knowledge as a path to change and community action. The women worked successively against deforestation, poverty, ignorance, embedded economic interests, and violent political oppression. They became a national political force that helped to bring down Kenya’s 24-year dictatorship.
Through TV footage and chilling first person accounts, TAKING ROOT documents the dramatic confrontations of the 1980s and ’90s as the women of the Green Belt Movement confront human rights abuses and environmental degradation. Cinema verité footage of the tree nurseries and the women and children who tend them brings to life the confidence and joy of people working to improve their own lives on their terms.
TAKING ROOT captures a world-view in which nothing is perceived as impossible and presents an awe-inspiring profile of Maathai’s unstoppable and courageous thirty-year journey to protect the environment, defend human rights, and promote democracy.
80 minutes run time
Watch trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwTLbPjVo3Y
*Please note: due to streaming requirements, tickets may not be used to host a congregation screening only for individual/family viewing. Please reach out to [email protected] if you are interested in bringing this screening to your community!
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Date: Friday, September 27th
Time: 6PM
Title: Stewards of the Land – Serán las dueñas de la tierra
Description:
Before disaster hits, three Puerto Rican farmers give it all to grow food that is healthy for the people and the planet. Nothing can stop them. Almost.
“Eschewing resilience as a trope, Serán las dueñas de la tierra approaches its subject matter with dignified candor in the face of impossible circumstances.”
–Néstor David Pastor, North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
Synopsis:
Stephanie, Ian, and Alfredo are landless ecological farmers striving to produce healthy food for local consumption in Puerto Rico. In this economically depressed US-territory – highly dependent on food imports and a frequent target for hurricanes – producing food locally is urgent. The documentary shows the protagonists’ grit as they attempt to carve a living without land ownership or capital.
90 minutes run time
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvVgPjEjvGo
*** Film is in Spanish with English subtitles. ***
*Please note: due to streaming requirements, tickets may not be used to host a congregation screening only for individual/family viewing. Please reach out to [email protected] if you are interested in bringing this screening to your community!
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Date: Saturday, September 28th
Time: 6PM
Title: Common Ground
Description:
Common Ground is the highly anticipated sequel to the juggernaut success documentary, Kiss the Ground, which touched over 1 billion people globally and inspired the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health.
Synopsis:
By fusing journalistic expose’ with deeply personal stories from those on the front lines of the food movement, Common Ground unveils a dark web of money, power, and politics behind our broken food system. The film reveals how unjust practices forged our current farm system in which farmers of all colors are literally dying to feed us. The film profiles a hopeful and uplifting movement of white, black, and indigenous farmers who are using alternative “regenerative” models of agriculture that could balance the climate, save our health, and stabilize America’s economy – before it’s too late.
87 minutes run time.
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-M4Hq0MKFA
View more resources here: https://commongroundfilm.org/resources/
*Please note: due to streaming requirements, tickets may not be used to host a congregation screening only for individual/household viewing. Please reach out to [email protected] if you are interested in bringing this screening to your community!