For a complete schedule, visit www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org or call 202.342.2564.

THE LAST WINTER

Director LARRY FESSENDEN in Person!

Strange things happen immediately in this nervy ghost story that also critiques our disregard for the needs of our planet. In the Arctic region of northern Alaska, an oil company's advance team struggles to establish a drilling base that will forever alter the pristine land. The team includes gruff and ultra-macho leader Pollack (Ron Perlman), his right-hand woman and former lover, Abby (Connie Britton), their pothead mechanic Motor (Kevin Corrigan) and rookie Maxwell (Zach Gilford), the wealthy son of a company executive. After one team member is found dead, disorientation begins to claim the sanity of the others. Why is the temperature rising in the dead of winter? Some people start seeing things out of the corner of their eyes and are worried that nature might be getting back at them as the film develops into a supernatural horror movie. (Steve Gravestock, Toronto International Film Festival.

DIR/PROD/SCR Larry Fessenden; SCR Robert Leaver; PROD Jeffrey Levy-Hinte. US/Iceland, 2006, color, 107 min. NOT RATED

Friday, March 16, 7:30

FEATURED SHOWCASE: GEORGE BUTLER MINI-RETROSPECTIVE
Films Include: THE LORD GOD BIRD, IN THE BLOOD and THE ENDURANCE

"It's the Holy Grail of ornithology. If America had a bird of paradise this would be it, and its history is the story of American conservation." - Writer George Plimpton

THE LORD GOD BIRD (A Work in Progress)

Director GEORGE BUTLER in Person!

In April 2005, a report that the spectacular Ivory-billed Woodpecker, supposedly extinct, had been rediscovered in the Arkansas swamps made front-page news across the country and around the world. The rarest of rare birds, the Ivory-bill was once common throughout the southeastern United States, but it vanished over the past century as its forest habitat was devastated. It has reappeared periodically to reawaken hope for threatened species and environments everywhere. As a work in progress, this film tells the story of the Ivory-bill not merely as a quaint piece of natural history, but as a story of faith and doubt, despair and hope, mirroring our own relationship with the environment.

DIR/SCR/PROD George Butler; PROD Bob Nixon. US, 2007, color. NOT RATED

Presented by White Mountain Films and National Geographic Films. Introduction by Dr. John Fitzpatrick, the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Director at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Discussion with filmmaker George Butler follows screening.

Saturday, March 17, 7:30

IN THE BLOOD

Director GEORGE BUTLER in Person!

The savage beauty of Africa comes to life through two hunting safaris separated by 80 years. The first, taken by Theodore Roosevelt in 1909, is captured through vintage footage and photographs. In the second, in 1986, Roosevelt's great-grandson shoulders the famed president's rifle and sets out to hunt elephants and crocodiles with his young son. Spotlighting the beauty and danger of the hunt and the bond between a father and his son, this film also explores the close relationship between hunting and conservation and how hunting can lead to an understanding and love of animals.

DIR/SCR/PROD George Butler. US, 1989, color, 90 min. RATED PG

Introduction by Dr. John Fitzpatrick, the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Director at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Discussion with filmmaker George Butler follows screening.

Sunday, March 18, 1:30

THE ENDURANCE: SHACKLETON'S LEGENDARY ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

Director GEORGE BUTLER in Person!

Although the South Pole had already been discovered, Captain Ernest Shackleton set out with a crew of 27 to attempt the first successful crossing of Antarctica to claim the continent for England. The expedition meets disastrous results when its ship, The Endurance, becomes trapped in ice, eventually breaks apart and sinks. Remarkably, the entire crew is rescued. The film relies on astonishing footage that the ship's cinematographer, Frank Hurley, shot and preserved with great difficulty, as well as interviews of surviving relatives.

DIR/PROD George Butler; SCR Caroline Alexander and Joseph Dorman. Sweden/UK/Germany/USA, 2000, color, 97 min. RATED G

Sunday, March 18, 4:00

SHARKWATER

Washington, D.C. Premiere
Director ROB STEWART in Person!

Gifted underwater photographer Rob Stewart teams with Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, capturing sumptuous high definition images of sharks at rest and play. A reasoned defense of the sharks' place in our ecosystem, the film also provides a horrifying illustration of the threat posed to them by the global economy. As the ocean's most important predator and the top of the food chain, sharks are vital to maintaining the sea's ecological balance, but they face environmental catastrophe as long-line fishing devastates their populations, particularly in Latin America, spurred by an endlessly growing market for shark fin in East Asia. (Noah Cowan, Toronto International Film Festival.)

DIR/SCR/PROD Rob Stewart; PROD Brian Stewart. Canada, 2006, color, 89 min. NOT RATED

Monday, March 19, 7:00

PLAY TIME

In this gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedy about confusion in the age of technology, the endearingly clumsy, resolutely old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, with a host of other lost souls, is thrust into a bafflingly modern Paris. Crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, PLAY TIME is a lasting testament to a modern age tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion. A monumental achievement, nearly three years in the making, this bank-breaking production represented the creative apex of this genre by Tati. [Note from Environmental Film Festival.]

DIR/SCR Jacques Tati; SCR Jacques Lagrange; PROD Bernard Marice. France/Italy, 1967, color, 120 min. NOT RATED

Saturday, March 24, 1:00; Sunday, March 25, 1:00; Monday, March 26, 9:10; Wednesday, March 28, 8:45; Thursday, March 29, 7:00