SYDNEY — An international environmental film festival, the Paddy Pallin Wild Spaces, will be held in Newtown on June 1-2. Festival director Gary Caganoff says that the festival is designed to entertain, inform, reflect the concerns of communities, show film makers' varied expressions of the planet's wild spaces and encourage discussion on Australia's social values in relation to the environment.
The program incorporates films on environmental campaigns including The Last Wild River, about the Franklin; indigenous issues including The Tale of Ruby Rose, set in Tasmania, and Blowpipes and Bulldozers about the Penan in Sarawak; wilderness adventure; deep ecology and more.
Unseen video-activists' footage of the NSW south-east forests and Tasmania's Tarkine wilderness will also be screened, as well as some old favourites, including Rocking the Foundations, an account of the green bans struggle led by the Builders Labourers Federation and My Survival as an Aboriginal about activist and musician/film maker Essie Coffey.
An accompanying photographic exhibition will be on display at Has Beans Cafe/Restaurant and Exhibition Space at 153A King Street, Newtown, June 1-9.
The films will be shown at the Dendy Cinema, 261 King Street, Newtown, and "Mount Eagle Iron Works", 150 Wilson Street, Newtown. Programs are available from the Dendy, Paddy Pallin Shop, Metro TV and other independent cinemas. Tickets per session are $10/8 and less if you attend more sessions. For more information contact 517 2697.