The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and will host a variety of films, speakers, and talkbacks. The 2022 edition of the festival will run from March 21 – April 10, and will be 90% virtual. Over 65 online events and films will be hosted by Ithaca College and Cinemapolis.
The theme this year is ENTANGLEMENTS, exploring how different environments, ideas, imaginaries, places, politics, practices, registers, and species twist into each other and enmesh.
The Park Center for Independent Media will be co-sponsoring several of the events in collaboration with FLEFF, starting with the book launch of “The Social Media Debate” on Wednesday, March 23. Devan Rosen, contributing authors, and moderator Raza Rumi will mine the debates percolating through this book about social media.
Later that same day, PCIM will also be co-sponsoring a conversation with Russian dissident writer Dmitry Bykov. One of Russia’s best-known public intellectuals, Bykov will join in conversation with Barbara Adams to discuss his experiences as dissident writer and how he was targeted by the same government agents who poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
PCIM will also be co-sponsoring a screening of the film “The Unmaking of a College” at Cinemapolis on Sunday, March 27. “The Unmaking of a College” delves into the 2019 crisis at Hampshire College when students led a 75-day sit-in – the longest in American college history – at the new president’s office to thwart her underhanded attempt to give up the independence of one of the most experimenting colleges in the United States. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Salman Hameed, Hampshire College; Patricia Rodriguez and Carlos Figueroa, Ithaca College; and moderator Raza Rumi, Director, PCIM.
Raza Rumi, director of the Park Center for Independent Media will moderate a talkback with director Aisha Sultan about her film “33 and Counting” on Sunday, April 3. The film 33 and Counting is a true-crime story about a 70-year-old grandmother from rural Missouri serving a life sentence for a murder she says her rapist committed.
On Friday, April 1, film historian Scott MacDonald will speak with experimental filmmaker Su Friedrich about her two epic website projects restoring the legacies of William Greaves and women film editors to film history.
On Wednesday, April 6, climate scientists and independent journalists will discuss and debunk the entangled media representations of climate crisis. The presenters for this roundtable are Jake Brenner, Environmental Sciences and Studies, Ithaca College; Phil McKenna, Inside Climate News; Maureen Nandini Mitra, Earth Island Journal; Praneeta Mudliar, Environmental Sciences and Studies, Ithaca College; and moderator Raza Rumi.
The Inaugural International Congress on Climate, Media, and Science will take place on Friday, April 8. This will be a highly interactive, discussion-driven event that brings together climate scientists, environmental activists and scholars, journalists, and media makers to mobilize new thinking about how climate, media, and science entangle, and what we can do.
More events and film screenings for the 2022 festival are listed on the FLEFF website.