March Community Cinema Events: Dirt Is Your Friend

Throughout the month of March Community Cinema held over 45 free events featuring Dirt! The Movie. Thousands attended the community-building and educational events. Plus, there were the worms, chickens, and microbes. Oh my!

Vandana Shiva - Environmental activist - India

It’s under our feet and under our fingernails, but what is it? And how did it get there? Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, find out how industrial farming, mining and urban development have led us toward cataclysmic droughts, starvation, floods and climate change. Dirt is a part of everything we eat, drink and breathe. Which is why we should stop treating it like, well…dirt.

One of our most successful events was in a city known more for its concrete than for its dirt. Dirt! The Movie thrilled crowds in New York City’s Central Park. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation is presenting five Independent Lens documentaries this season as part of the Community Cinema line-up. Find out what happened at the event from Christina Dookwah who helped organize the event:

“The screening was packed with people eager to hear from Bill Benenson, co-director and producer of Dirt! The Movie, and William Bryant Logan, founder and president of Urban Arborists, a leading tree care firm and is a certified arborist with the International Society of Arboriculture who is also the author of the book on which the movie was based.”

There are still five chances to catch Dirt! The Movie for free at Community Cinema tonight ion Houston and in a few more locations in April. Read on for more about our exciting events and for more ways to get dirty. › Continue reading

Tags: dirt, earth, earth day, farming, organic, soil

Community Cinema Finds Dirt Lovers in New York City

Just the other night, Community Cinema hosted a screening of the Independent Lens film Dirt! The Movie in New York City’s Central Park. The film looks at how industrial farming, mining, and urban development have endangered soil and resulted in cataclysmic droughts, starvation, floods, and climate change. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation is presenting five Independent Lens documentaries this season as part of the Community Cinema line-up. Find out what happened at the event from Christina Dookwah who helped organize the event.

Community Cinema screening of Dirt! The Movie in New York City's Central Park.

The screening was packed with people eager to hear from Bill Benenson, co-director and producer of Dirt! The Movie, and William Bryant Logan, author of the book on which the movie was based.

Dirt! The Movie tells the story of Earth’s most valuable source of fertility –– its soil. Experts from around the world who study dirt –– and developed a beneficial relationship with soil –– were interviewed in the film.

We were fortunate to have two experts join us for a post-screening discussion about the critical issues highlighted in the film. Bill Benenson, who has more than 30 years of producing and directing experience, has worked on such documentaries The Marginal Way, Diamond Rivers, as well as the critically-acclaimed narrative film Mister Johnson. He gains much of his inspiration for his work from once serving in the Peace Corps and as an initial investor in Seeds of Change. He is also active in the National Resources Defense Council, Rainforest Action Network, and Ploughshares.

Our other panelist, William Bryant Logan, is founder and president of Urban Arborists, a leading tree care firm and is a certified arborist with the International Society of Arboriculture. His book, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth inspired the documentary.

Be sure to come out to Community Cinema screenings either in New York City or one of the 60 plus locations nationwide. It’s a great opportunity to meet others in your community and get a sneak peek of what’s coming up on Independent Lens.

Christina Dookwah
New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

Tags: dirt! the movie, farms, new york city, organic, parks

San Francisco Learns About the Dirt Under Its Feet (Under the Concrete)

At the Community Cinema San Francisco screening earlier this week we welcomed over 130 audience members to the San Francisco Main Library to see Dirt! The Movie.

In the film everyone who was interviewed about dirt seemed so excited- thrilled to talk about the relationship they have with dirt. Fortunately for us, this excitement carried over into our discussion after the film.

We had a panel of extremely dedicated and informed professionals in the environmental world join us. We got a chance to partner with SF Department for the Environment for a second time this season, this time joined by Donnie Oliveira the Green Jobs Coordinator. We also had Kirsten Schwind, Program Director for Bay Localize and Suzi Palladino, Program Director from Garden for the Environment.

This video edits together clips from the entire event in just a few minutes. It’s worth a watch.

Audience members had a conversation with our panel about the possibilities of rooftop gardens, how our youth and young adults are helping our local environment as part of the City’s Urban Green Team and how we can all take small steps to be more involved in solutions for our environment.

Donnie suggests that we all try and plant one tree. However, his suggestion is not without a warning: once you plant one tree, you get ‘the itch’ to do more. You get invested- his statement is supported by a friend in the audience from SF Environment, a Green Warrior.

Suzi recommends that we all try to compost. Apparently there are several ways to get started- and you can even compost indoors. For people like me, who would like to try and compost but have no idea how, there are free classes every Saturday at Garden for the Environment.

As is often the case with Community Cinema events, I am completely surprised by something I learn from the panel- this screening was no different. Being a ‘city girl’ I was completely unaware that it’s legal in San Francisco for me to have a dairy cow, a pig and a goat in my backyard… who knew?!

There was a fair amount of talk about accessibility to food in this country and more specifically, access to healthy organic produce. Which companies get subsidies and what struggles do small farmers face?

Audience members also had knowledge to share with one another: which Farmers Markets are great in San Francisco, and farmers who will provide you will fresh, organic produce in exchange for your work.

Dirt! The Movie is definitely the kind of film that energizes people to do something- whether it’s to plant a tree in your yard (or a neighbor’s), to finally figure out what goes in that green bin that’s been empty in your kitchen for months, or a Saturday workshop on composting- it seems there is room for all of us to get a little dirty.

Tags: dirt! the movie, ecology, garden, local produce, organic, San Francisco

Seattle Really Loves Its Dirt

March in Seattle has historically been notoriously wet and gray. This past Saturday was the perfect cloudless day to enjoy Seattle Center's International Fountain and lawns.

This past Saturday a diverse audience enjoyed part of their day at the free Community Cinema Seattle premiere screening of Dirt! The Movie at Seattle Center. On an unusually gorgeous sunny day in Seattle – especially odd for early March – the audience was eager to discuss what was being done to help Seattle’s ecosystem heal itself and ways they could help. The speakers kept offering to move the discussion out to the sun-drenched lobby, but the entire audience stayed for the entire discussion.  Many stayed to ask questions and the topic quickly turned to chickens and worms, but more on that later.

Our panelists and local event partners are inovators in an already crowded field of bioneers in the Seattle and Puget Sound region. We were so fortunate to be joined by Kathryn A. Gardow, Executive Director of PCC Farmland Trust and Brad Halm, a farmer and co-owner of The Seattle Urban Farm Company, which has garnered quite a bit of press for its creative and friendly approach to urban gardening and farming.

Kathryn started by thanking the audience for showing up on such a beautiful cloudless day. She enjoyed the film and asked for a show hands from the audience if they agreed, and every hand shot up. She went on to explain what PCC Farmland Trust is and what it does. PCC Farmland Trust secures, preserves and stewards threatened farmland in the Pacific Northwest, to ensure that generations of local farmers productively farm it using sustainable, organic growing methods. The Trust takes its mission one step further than most land trusts by working to place farmers on the property, actively producing food for the local community. The PCC Farmland Trust is an independent, community-supported non-profit land trust. It was founded in 1999 by PCC Natural Markets as a separate, non-profit organization. Since inception, the Trust has saved four farms totaling 549 acres. What is now PCC Natural Markets began as a food-buying club of 15 families in 1953. Today, it’s the largest consumer-owned natural food retail co-operative in the United States.

Brad Halm (left) and Kathryn Gardow (right) spoke passionately about organic farming and farmland preservation after the Seattle Premiere of Dirt! The Movie

Brad Halm of The Seattle Urban Farm Company is a native of Ohio. He developed an interest in sustainable agriculture while helping tend a garden with housemates at Denison University. That interest has since grown as he has worked on a number of organic farms in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and was most recently employed as the manager of the Community Supported Agriculture program at Village Acres Farm in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania. The Seattle Urban Farm Company uses only organic methods to manage their  clients’ gardens, so the soil will be healthy and productive for years to come. Vegetables will be free of herbicides, synthetic pesticides, and genetically modified organisms. By bringing farmers into a yard, it helps share the risks of growing food. If the weather is poor, a garden is not as productive as it might otherwise be. If the weather is good, a garden can produce a bumper crop of delectable vegetables. And your chickens and worms can eat the rest, but more on that later. › Continue reading

Tags: chickens, farming, organic, pcc farmland trust, seattle, seattle tilth, seattle urban farm company, worms