Film Descriptions

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (85 min)

An unforgettable and shocking wake-up call, A CRUDE AWAKENING offers the rock-solid argument that the era of cheap oil is in the past. Relentless and clear-eyed, this intensively-researched film drills deep into the uncomfortable realities of a world that is both addicted to fossil fuels and blissfully unaware of the looming "peak oil" crisis. Drawing on an international cast of maverick energy experts and thinkers, directors Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack debunk the conventional wisdom that oil production will continue to climb, and instead stare bleakly at a planet facing economic meltdown and conflict over its most valuable resource. Featuring a haunting score by Phillip Glass and a fascinating array of rare archival footage, the film explores oil's rocky relationship with human progress in locales ranging from ancient Baku, Azerbaijan to dusty oilpatch town McCamey, Texas Amidst a dark and disturbing vision of our future, A CRUDE AWAKENING hints at a humbler way of life built around sustainability and alternative energy, providing a visually stunning, boldly prophetic testament which provokes not just thought but action. (from film jacket)

E2 / Energy (6 - 30 min episodes - we can show any number of them)

Global in scope and comprised of six 30-minute chapters filmed in HD, e² energy features the engineers, policymakers and innovations that are transforming energy availability and consumption. Each episode covers viable policy and technology alternatives to the fossil fuel culture. Episodes explore: California as a world leader in emissions control; transportation and the need for greater efficiencies; ethanol in Brazil and its future in the United States; distributed solar energy as a means to poverty alleviation in Bangladesh; community wind in Minnesota and its role in regional economic development; and the role of coal and nuclear power in our future energy mix. Solutions-oriented, the series illustrates the trials and trade-offs that any evolution in our global energy system will demand. e² energy is narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Episodes: (1) Harvesting the Wind, (2) Energy for a Developing World, (3) Paving the Way, (4) Growing Energy, (5) State of Resolve, and (6) Coal and Nuclear: Problem or Solution? (from PBS E2 Energy web site, includes trailer )

Flow: For Love of Water (84 min)

Irena Salina s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER? Beyond identifying the problem, Flow also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround. (from Amazon.com product description)

King Corn (90 min)

Picking up where Super Size Me left off, King Corn examines America's health woes through the multifaceted lens of one humble grain. Director Aaron Woolf and co-writers Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis offer irrefutable proof that the US is virtually drowning in the stuff. Corn meal, corn starch, hydrologized corn protein, and high fructose corn syrup fuel a multitude of products, from soft drinks to hamburgers. The starchy vegetable grows with ease and government subsidies insure over-abundant production. Woolf documents the 11-month effort of college friends Cheney and Ellis, who trace their ancestry to the same small Iowa town, to raise their own crop. After finding a farmer willing to lend them an acre, they meet with agronomists, historians, and other experts before plowing, seeding, and spraying. Prior to harvesting, the easygoing Yale grads travel to Colorado to compare the grass-fed cattle of yore with today's corn-fed counterparts; then to New York to explore the links between corn syrup, obesity, and diabetes. With assistance from author Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), a whimsical score, and stop-motion animation--farm toys and corn kernels--Woolf and associates bring biochemistry to vivid life. On a micro level, this genial eye-opener celebrates friends and farmers; on a macro level, King Corn bemoans the subsidies and genetic modifications that have turned a formerly protein-filled product into the fatty "yellow dent no. 2." (from Amazon.com)

BCC Earth Week is organized every spring by the BCC Student Science Association. For more information contact Rob Viens in the BCC Science Division at rviens@bellevuecollege.edu or (425) 564-3158.