SF State's International Center for the Arts is presenting the Green Screen Environmental Film Festival June 1-5 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco.

The festival will give audiences a chance to witness the world’s copious mysteries and treasures, as well as look into the earth’s complexities, through more than 30 feature-length and short films. The festival is a featured program of the United Nations World Environment Day 2005.

“As conservationists, we are thrilled with the broad array of topics the International Center for the Arts has chosen to cover in this film festival, as well as the quality,” said Shawn Rosenmoss, director of the
San Francisco Department of the Environment and coordinator of many World Environment Day events.

This is the first time the Green Screen festival will take place in the United States, making it “quite a big deal” for SF State’s ICA Documentary Film Institute, said SF State professor and cinema department chair Stephen Ujlaki.

Cities throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and South America have hosted the festival in the past as part of the World Environment Day celebration.

As head of the ICA’s documentary film institute, Ujlaki, producer Tom Luddy and their staffs are responsible for choosing the festival’s 30-plus films.

According to Ujlaki, each environmentally-themed piece was chosen in order to allow the Bay Area to see some of the best documentaries ever made in the world, from some of the best documentary film makers.

“We were looking for films that were good as films, not just educationally,” said Ujlaki.

Some of the anticipated major titles of the festival are “Darwin’s Nightmare,” by director Hubert Sauper, “Grizzly Man,” by director Werner Herzog, “Deep Blue,” a new U.S. release from Miramax and directors Andy Byatt and Alastair Fothergill, and “The Real Dirt on Farmer John,” by director Taggart Siegel.

Even though all the films are preconceived to possess much promise, the film deemed “a favorite” by Ujlaki is “Darwin’s Nightmare.”

The film is about the survival of two ruthless species - the Nile perch, an enormous fish that quickly annihilated almost all other fish life in Tanzania's Lake Victoria after its artificial introduction in the
1960s, and the monster known as global capitalism.

“It’s one of the most compelling films of all the films we saw,” said Ujlaki.

The film even stirred up some emotions in LaCrecia Bramlett, a student at City College of San Francisco who recently had the opportunity to watch it.

“It hurts my heart to see that so many people are dying in Tanzania while there is an abundance of fish right there in the lake, but they have to ship it out to the Europeans and Russians,” said Bramlett.
“Something is just not right about that.”

She added the film was extremely intense and vivid, giving her a chance to observe the grim realities of a world she knew nothing about.

Each film shown as part of the festival will address some aspect of the environment and the complex issues surround it.

Through the lens of filmmakers and the voices of the panelists, which will include various filmmakers, the audience will gain an appreciation of the fundamental similarities between organisms inhabiting vastly different global planes - from the inherent beauty of nature to a greater awareness of where its survival is threatened, and ultimately, to a clearer view of the opportunities we have to protect our world.

According to the World Environment Day Web site, the event was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972. World Environment Day is commemorated with an international exposition through the week of June 5. The U.N. has often used the day to stimulate public awareness of the
environment and enhance political attention and public action.

The programming for "Green Cities," the theme of this year’s World Environment Day, has a more focused theme each day: Urban Power, Cities on the Move, Redesigning Metropolis, Pure Elements and Flower Power.

The Green Screen Film Festival is only one of the activities available during U.N. World Environment Day. There will also be workshops, tours, the Green Cities Expo and art events at Fort Mason, lectures, presentations and much more.

Information on other films and the various activities available can be found at http:/www.wed2005.org and http://www.greenscreenfilmfestival.org.