A Fierce Green Fire explores the environmental movement

A definitive history of one of the most important movements of the 20th century, A Fierce Green Fire chronicles the environmental movement’s fascinating evolution from the 1960s to the present.

The final film in the spring Green Film Series is A Fierce Green Fire, The Battle for the Living Planet will be screened on Monday, April 29 at 7:30 pm at the Gibsons Heritage Theatre. The film chronicles the largest movement of the 20th century and brings together all the major parts of environmentalism and connects them. It focuses on activism, people fighting to save their homes, their lives, the future – and succeeding against all odds.
A discussion led by local activists will follow the film screening. A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet is the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement – grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years from conservation to climate change. Directed and written by Mark Kitchell, Academy-Award nominated director of Berkeley in the sixties, and narrated by Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Ashley Judd, Van Jones and Isabel Allende, the film premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2012 and has won acclaim at dozens of festivals around the world. It is now being shown in theatres nationwide.
The film unfolds in five acts, each with a central story and character:
• David Brower and the Sierra Club’s battle to halt dams in the Grand Canyon
• Lois Gibbs and the Love Canal residents’ struggle against 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals
• Paul Watson and Greenpeace’s campaigns to save whales and baby harp seals
• Chico Mendes and Brazilian rubbertappers’ fight to save the Amazon rainforest
• Bill McKibben and the 25-year effort to address the impossible issue – climate change
A Fierce Green Fire tells stories about four successful movements, then takes up the biggest cause of all, still in suspense. It gives us reason to believe change can come. Vivid archival film brings it all back and insightful interviews with activists shed light on what it all means. The film offers a deeper view of environmentalism as civilizational change, bringing our industrial society into sustainable balance with nature. It’s the battle for a living planet.