[SEMCO] Environmental Film Festival

[Jeremy Houser]

*Nature as Inspiration: The Films of Jacques Perrin*

In collaboration with the MV Film Society, this Memorial Day weekend VCS is
bringing French filmmaker and actor Jacques Perrin to the Island for an
environmental film festival showcasing his spectacular nature films. The
festival, titled “Nature as Inspiration,” will be held at the MV Film
Center, located at Tisbury Marketplace on Beach Road.

Five of Perrin’s more recent nature films will be screened across four
days, from May 21 to 24. A highlight of the weekend will be Saturday
night’s North American premiere of *A Night on Earth*. The film features
the first use of new technology allowing full-color filming in the dark, a
cinematographic breakthrough for the ability to capture truly natural
animal behavior in the middle of the night. Advance rushes from Perrin’s
new film, *The Seasons* (premiering fall 2015) will also be previewed and
discussed after the showing. Other Nature as Inspiration showings include
*Oceans*, *Winged Migration*, *Microcosmos*, and *Himalaya*. As an
appetizer for the spectacular nature films, on May 20 there will be a
screening of the Academy Award-winning classic *Cinema Paradiso*, in which
Perrin stars.

The festival will include panel discussions with Jacques Perrin, local
environmentalists and artists, live music, and other special guests. There
will be an opening night reception in the Film Center lobby on May 21 and a
special champagne reception Saturday evening (the 23rd). For tickets and
more information please see the Film Society's website, or contact them at
info at mvfilmsociety.com or 508-696-9369. The festival is made possible by a
grant from The Richard Lounsbery Foundation.

The Nature as Inspiration festival is part of a broader initiative from VCS
called “Connect, Reflect, Protect.” In our 50th anniversary year, VCS is
seeking to spark environmental awareness and reflection on the importance
of connecting our Island community to the natural world that supports us.

The Connect, Reflect, Protect initiative encompasses various events, public
lectures, and programs for children, including an environmental art contest
for high school students. During the film festival there will be a public
showing of the students’ artwork in the Feldman Family Artspace, located in
the Film Center lobby. An awards ceremony honoring the participants will be
held May 24, the final day of the festival, followed by a free encore
screening of Oceans for those 18 and under.

Additional information on the other films:

*Microcosmos* invites us to stroll through a prairie in the south of France
and examine up close what appears to be an impenetrable jungle. Filmed on
two square meters of prairie, it reveals the proximity of the inaccessible
world of insects. A whole universe opens and spreads out between blades of
grass, the universe of the infinitely small, of miniscule beings necessary
to nature, even if only for pollination.

In *Winged Migration*, we skim across our planet on the wing tips of
migrating birds of different species. Birds live in a world without
borders; they are symbols of freedom. This film also corresponds to a
profound human desire: to fly with birds. Innovative techniques follow
birds in their aerial trajectories, go with them to the farthest horizons,
and perhaps help us understand the unity of our planet. Every year, in the
face of adversity – bad weather, hills and mountains, ocean expanses,
deserts, traps set by man – birds undertake a true odyssey and a struggle
for survival.

In *Oceans*, we cross the last natural frontier of our planet, the deep
reaches of the sea which are still greatly unknown and misunderstood.
Oceans isn’t a documentary. It is cinema – pure, true cinema; not an
external view, not the underwater world observed by a scientist or a
filmmaker but the world of the sea seen through the eyes of its creatures.
Its aim, and its triumph, is to be a fish among fish.





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________________________________
Jeremy Houser
Communications Coordinator
Vineyard Conservation Society
jhouser at vineyardconservation.org
www.vineyardconservation.org
508-693-9588 x17
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