Climate of Change this Friday, March 2nd!

First Friday Films will be featuring Climate of Change, an incredible, award-winning documentary shot across four continents. Showtime will be on March 2, 2012, 6:30pm at the American Memorial Park Visitors Center.

Directed by Brian Hill and narrated by Oscar winning actress Tilda Swinton, Climate of Change tells several stories of determined everyday global citizens and their efforts to combat human-induced climate change.  The film makes a strong case for the role of individuals in saving the planet and a powerful call to act.

Additionally, Dr. Jeff Maynard, a visiting research scientist specializing in climate change impacts and environmental risk in the Pacific, will be speaking before the film about his experiences studying the biology of global environmental change.

For planning purposes, the movie will run about 90 minutes. As always, First Friday Films is free and open to the public. First Friday Films is a monthly film series brought to you through a partnership with the National Park Service and the Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ), with generous support from community groups and organizations, such as the NMI Council for Humanities who sponsored this film.

There Once was an Island tomorrow!

Its the first week of February, which means its time for another First Friday Film event!  Tomorrow (Friday 2/3), we will be screening the award-winning film There Once Was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho, by New Zealand director Briar March. Showtime will be 6:30pm at the American Memorial Parks Visitors Center.
This very moving feature documentary is not to be missed. The film follows three people from Takuu atoll in the Solomon Islands as their community experiences the devastating effects of climate change firsthand. Will they decide to stay with their damaged and sinking island home or move to a new and unfamiliar land, leaving their culture and language behind forever?  You can see the trailer for the film here: http://www.thereoncewasanisland.com/

Additionally, we will have Noah Idechong, Speaker of the House of Delegates of Palau and founding member of the Palau Conservation Society, giving a very special video presentation about the effects of climate change on Micronesia and how Palau and other Micronesian nations are looking to combat it through political means.

For planning purposes, the movie runs about 80 minutes long. As always, First Friday Films is free and open to the public.  A special thanks goes to the NMI Council for Humanities, who sponsored this film.

See you tomorrow!

Talakhaya film to be show on channel 2 tonight!

A new documentary on Rota’s Talakhaya Revegetation Project will be featured tonight, Jan. 25, on Channel 2 at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.

The Talakhaya Revegetation Project was implemented in 2006, where community planting efforts were greatly increased to reduce impacts of decades of deforestation by illegal burning.

The 14 minute, locally shot and produced documentary highlights the challenges they face with burning and soil erosion, the revegetation efforts of the community, and the project's successes over the last 5 years to reduce sediment from running off of the land and polluting adjacent coral reef ecosystems.   The short film will air immediately following Channel 2’s evening news programs.

Funding for the film and the Rota DLNR headed revegetation program has come from the U.S. Coral Reef Initiative.

Don't Miss it!

There Once was an Island for February

First Friday Films will be featuring a powerful new film for the month of February, There Once Was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho by New Zealand director, Briar March. Showtime will be on February 3, 2012, 6:30pm at the American Memorial Parks Visitors Center.

This award winning, feature documentary is not to be missed. The film follows three people from Takuu atoll in the Solomon Islands as their community experiences the devastating effects of climate change firsthand. Will they decide to stay with their damaged and sinking island home or move to a new and unfamiliar land, leaving their culture and language behind forever? 

First Friday Films is a monthly film series brought to you through a partnership with the National Park Service and the Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ), with generous support from community groups and organizations such as the NMI Council For Hummanities which is sponsoring this film.

For planning purposes, the movie runs about 80 minutes long. As always, First Friday Films is free and open to the public.

"Economics of Happiness" tomorrow!

We have a great film tomorrow (Friday) at American Memorial Park at 6:30pm.  We will be screening The Economics of Happiness, a film that looks into how globalization is affecting our communities and their well being (a full description of the film can be found in our previous post here).

We are incredibly excited to have Anthony Pellegrino speaking before the film and answering audience questions about localizing our economy here in the CNMI.

This event is the beginning of several sponsored by the CNMI Council for Humanities, and we can not thank them enough for their support of this project.

For planning purposes, the movie runs about 65 minutes long. As always, First Friday Films is free and open to the public. 

See you tomorrow!

"Economics of Happiness" for January

First Friday Films will be featuring its first film of the year and you don’t want to miss it. The Economics of Happiness, a film by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick, & John Page, will be showing on January 6, 2012, 6:30pm at the American Memorial Parks Visitors Center. 

Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of business and banking. The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On one hand, the alliance between governments and big business continues to promote globalization and consolidation of corporate power. And on the other, people all over the world are resisting those policies. Communities are coming together to re-build more human-scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – the economics of localization.  More information about the film can be found here.

Anthony Pellegrino, owner of Saipan Aquaculture Co. Inc. and Cargo Air Bridge, will be on hand to discuss his vision for a sustainable local economy in the NMI as well as to share how he believes the community can participate in building it.  Additionally, he will be answering audience questions following the film.

For planning purposes, the movie runs about 65 minutes long. As always, First Friday Films is free and open to the public.

"Ocean of Islands" to be shown prior to this Friday's film

Tomorrow (Friday 12/2) we will be showing a second episode of the BBC South Pacific series entitled Fragile Paradise.  The film will start promptly at 6:30pm at the American Memorial Park visitor's center.  See the post below for more details.

Additionally, at 5:15pm we will be re-showing the episode from this series we screened last month, Ocean of Islands.  So if you missed this one, or would just like to see it again, come early tomorrow.

As with last month, we will be showing both of these beautiful films in Blu-Ray, which looks great up on the big screen.

For planning purposes, each episode will run 50min in length.  Seating is limited, so please arrive early to ensure admittance.

See you tomorrow!