2008 Highlights
2008 Numbers:
- 10 feature films and shorts
- 10 filmmakers
- 700 attendees
Through screenings and conversations with filmmakers, the Moving Image Festival ignited dialogue and inspired action. Organized by Aaron Leventman, MIF welcomed leading filmmakers and activists. Director Gene Rosow and co-director Bill Benenson presented a clip from their new documentary Dirt! The Movie about our vital yet broken relationship with soil. The almost completed film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009 to raves, where they gave out Bioneers media materials to honor our influence on the film.
Kenneth Turran, LA Times critic, spotlighted the film as one of Sundance’s best documentaries: “An invigorating look at an invaluable substance we take for granted that makes the case that dirt might be more alive than we are.”
Alex Rivera packed the house for his awardwinning, genre-bending science fiction film Sleep Dealer that took home the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and the Waldo Salt Screen writing Award at Sundance in 2008. Sleep Dealer was also nominated for a 2009 Independent Spirit Award for best first film.
Eric Daniel Metzgar, whose The Chances of the World Changing showed at the 2006 MIF, screened his latest work Life. Support. Music. The film was inspired by the writings of past Bioneers presenter Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen. Metzgar’s new film Reporter was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009.
“The Bioneers Conference has been a source of inspiration to us for many years, introducing us to many of the brilliant thinkers who became participants in Dirt! including Vandana Shiva, Majora Carter, John Todd, Janine Benyus, Jeannette Armstrong, Jeremy Narby and David Orr.”
Bill Benenson, Producer and Co-Director, Dirt! The Movie
Laurie Benenson, Executive Producer
“The Conference somehow manages to open its participants—emotionally, psychologically, spiritually—and that opening allows a film to penetrate deeply. The MovingImage Festival is always a success, because the audience truly receives the content that we as filmmakers try so hard to impart. After my screenings, I’ve had many long conversations with Bioneers attendees. The kind that encourage me to keep making films.”
- Eric Daniel Metzger, Director of Life. Support. Music.
Other films screened at Bioneers 2008:
- Phoenix Dance: with Karina Epperlein
- Election Day: with Katy Chevigny
- The Shock Doctrine: by Hollywood director Alfonso Cuarón, from Naomi Klein’s book
- Talkin’ Water: with Shannon Sonenstein and Rodneka Shelbia
- Tent City: with Edgardo Cervano-Soto
- The Story of Stuff: with Annie Leonard
- Escape from Suburbia: with Jerry Mander
- Our Land, Our Life: with George and Beth Gage
- South Central Farm: Oasis in a Concrete
- Desert: with Sheila Laffey
