Join the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space for our eighth annual film festival titled Reel Ecologies: Films for a Sustainable City. The festival will now take place on October 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 9th.
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Reel Ecologies: Films for a Sustainable City
*WITH NEW DATES*
October 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 9th 2020
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Tickets
MoRUS brings back an end-of-summer tradition with its 8th Annual Film Fest. Taking on the agro-industrial complex—while reexamining humanity’s relationship with soil—Reel Ecologies: Films for a Sustainable City will now kick off at 7pm on Friday October 2nd and Saturday October 3rd at Peach Tree Community Garden, 236 E 2nd Street, before moving on up to Green Oasis Community Garden Sunday night, October 4th, at 7pm located at 370 E 8th Street. Then on Friday October 9th we are excited to, once again, present "Insects & Flowersex" at Le Petit Versailles Community Garden in collaboration with Allied Production and Mushroom Archives' Bradley Eros. To attend, RSVP or ticket purchase is required through Eventbrite as space is limited and distancing is enforced. Reel Ecologies: Films for a Sustainable City is presented in partnership with the non-profit Green Map whose exhibition, How Green Is My City?, is currently on display at MoRUS. With a New York City focus, the festival will explore the negative effects of industrialized mono-crop agriculture featuring positive urban initiatives to counter it, provocative themes, and real-world examples addressing such issues as community gardens, composting and permaculture. Ticket proceeds from this festival will be donated to 6th Street Community Center's emergency food distribution. On Sunday at Green Oasis we will offer a youth-friendly "Adopt-a-Worm Ceremony," in partnership with Green Oasis and Reclaimed Organics as an opportunity to learn about compost -- bring your food scraps to compost !
Festival Schedule
Friday, October 2nd: “The End of the World As We Know It”
Peachtree Community Garden, 236 East 2nd Street, 7 PM
Two short documentaries about sustainable farming in NYC–Guerrilla Gardeners in Queens and Feeding the Future, New York City’s Experiment in Urban Agriculture–show that urban agriculture is sustainable and doable. They will serve as an introduction to the classic, dystopian food thriller, Soylent Green in an effort to provoke conversations about the long-term effects of big agriculture.
Saturday, October 3rd: “Pandemic Society: Addressing Simultaneous Pandemics”
Peachtree Community Garden, 236 East 2nd Street, 7 PM
The documentary Soul Fire Farm examines the eponymous BIPOC-centered community farm in Upstate New York, which was created to end food apartheid—it will be introduced by Marisa DeDominicis who began her urban gardening exploits in the vacant lots next to the 13th Street squats and continues it today as the Co-founder and Executive Director of Earth Matter: the Governor’s Island-based organization created to reduce the organic waste misdirected into the garbage stream by encouraging neighbor participation and leadership in composting. Saturday’s feature film is A Place at the Table. A documentary nominated for Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, it examines the serious economic, social, and cultural damage caused by hunger in America.
Sunday, October 4th: “Bee the Change”
Green Oasis Community Garden, 370 E 8th Street, 7 PM
The noble honeybee gets its own night with the screening of a film from educational leader Bullfrog Films: Honeybees is a short exploring the role of honeybees in a common garden. It will be introduced by a neighborhood beekeeper. Honeybees will be followed by Dirt, a 52-minute documentary that chronicles the history of East Village Community Gardens by interweaving the struggles of gardeners such as Adam Purple and Green Oasis Community Garden founders Normand Vallee & Reynaldo Arenas. Adding to the day’s events will be the unearthing of Adopt-A-Worm, a pet earthworm adoption project for all ages where attendees can find the perfect earthworm to rehome in a worm-friendly environment of their choosing.
Friday, October 9th: “InSects & FlowerSex (The Birds & The Bees)”
Le Petit Versailles, 247 East 2nd Street, 7:00 PM
A lively, living mixed-media series of shorts featuring films from 1930s to 1970s curated by Mushroom Archives’ Bradley Eros. In keeping with Le Petit Versailles’ vanguard legacy of creative disruption, the evening will include avant garde movies—such as Killers of the Insect World and Woody Woodpecker & The Termites from Mars—live sound by LeLe Dai aka Lullady, a radio collage soundtrack by Jeanne Liotta and live soundtrack performances by Pinc Louds and by Richard Sylvarnes. The works will be presented almost entirely on 16mm prints, some with additional perfume scents.