Blog: On Screen in Ithaca

• Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival

Spring is here, and so is Ithaca's annual Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF)! Now in its second decade, FLEFF promises -- and always delivers -- a week-long smorgasbord of multimedia arts events, including digital art exhibitions, special festival minicourses, silent films with live music, installations, new media and community forums.

At the heart of the festival are films, of course: exciting, provocative, and often groundbreaking films from all over the world. Screened from morning until night all over campus and at cinemas downtown, these films, say the festival's directors, "reboot the environment and sustainability into a larger global conversation, embracing issues ranging from wars, health, diseases, music, digital arts, cinemas, popular cultures, fine arts, experimental media, literature, economics, archives, AIDS, women’s rights, and human rights." 

See for yourself. Pull up a chair and watch as we show you trailers from 14 films featured at FLEFF!

"Haney has taken a story of outrage and injustice and made a film that's as much an inpsiring story of spiritual awakening as it is a call to action."

~ Ann Hornaday
Washington Post

• The Price of Sugar

Synopsis from Uncommon Productions:

In the Dominican Republic, a tropical island-nation, tourists flock to pristine beaches unaware that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians have toiled under armed-guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, much of which ends up in U.S. kitchens. They work grueling hours and frequently lack decent housing, clean water, electricity, education or healthcare. Narrated by Paul Newman, The Price of Sugar follows Father Christopher Hartley, a charismatic Spanish priest, as he organizes some of this hemisphere's poorest people to fight for their basic human rights. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate and at what human cost they are produced.

"...moving and touching, and possessed of intelligence and integrity...with acres of heart and humanity..."

~ Alex Crawford
BBC

• Man Push Cart

Synopsis from Noruz Films: 

Man Push Cart tells the story of Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi) a former Pakistani rock singer who ekes out a living selling coffee and donuts to morning commuters from his push cart in Midtown Manhattan. Ahmad supplements his income by selling bootleg porn DVDs, carefully saving his money to afford a place where he might be able to live with his estranged young son. It is a harsh, often humiliating life, but Ahmad carries on with a stoic dignity and sensitivity, seemingly determined to find his way. Then the dull routine of his life is brightened by two developments: the arrival of a young Spanish woman (Leticia Dolera) working down the street in a newspaper kiosk; and an offer of assistance from a wealthy fellow Pakistani (Charles Daniel Sandoval), who remembers Ahmad's former life as a rock star.

Academy Award Winner:
Best Documentary Picture

• Taxi to the Dark Side

Synopsis from TH!NKFilm:

From the director of ENRON: the Smartest Guys in the Room, Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side is a gripping investigation into the reckless abuse of power by the Bush Administration. By probing the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, the film exposes a worldwide policy of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights.

"#1 film of the year! A great film."

~ A.O. Scott
The New York Times

• 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days

Synopsis from IFC Entertainment:

During the final days of communism in Romania, two college roommates, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), are busy preparing for a night away. But rather than planning for a holiday, they are making arrangements for Gabita's illegal abortion and unwittingly, both find themselves burrowing deep down a rabbit hole of unexpected revelations.