EarthxFilm Announces Lineup for 2019 Festival
Following a kick-off week of special screenings and events, EarthxFilm presented by EarthX, will present Ben Masters’ “The River and The Wall” for its special spotlight screening with a gala presentation at the Perot Museum on April 25.
A full slate of films and VR presentation for the environmentally focused film festival will take place from April 19 to 28.
“This year, we will continue to increase our footprint across Dallas, screening films, presenting virtual reality, interactive projects and environmentally-focused panels at a number of theaters and venues all over the city – beyond our wonderful hub at Fair Park during EarthX,” said EarthxFilm’s co-Founder and president, Michael Cain. “These films and the filmmakers behind them deserve the largest audiences we can provide as the impact and immediacy of their subjects touch every one of us.”
EarthX will take place from April 26 to 28.
“The River and The Wall” follows five friends on an immersive adventure through the unknown wilds of the Texas borderlands as they travel 1,200 miles from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico on horses, mountain bikes, and canoes.
In what he saw as the urgency of documenting the last remaining wilderness in Texas, Masters recruited NatGeo Explorer Filipe DeAndrade, ornithologist Heather Mackey, river guide Austin Alvarado, and conservationist Jay Kleberg to join him on a two-and-a-half-month journey where they come face-to-face with the human side of the immigration debate.
Highlights from the festival include films featuring the attempt to save animals and species around the world, whose survival also has an impact far beyond that single life or the one species’ lives.
Those films include:
David Hambridge’s “Kifaru,” about the effort of a small group of rangers in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy, devoted to caring for and protecting Sudan, the last male white rhino, along with Sudan’s daughter and granddaughter.
Richard Ladkani’s “Sea of Shadows”focuses on the fight to save the earth’s smallest whale, the vaquita, which is at the point of extinction due to the mass fishing of the totoaba (described as the “cocaine of the sea” due to the black market price for the fish’s bladder) in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez.
Rob Stewart’s “Sharkwater Extinction” follows the late filmmaker and activist’s continued efforts to expose the shark fin and fishing industry that continue to drive the extinction of the species.
Ross Kauffman’s “Tigerland” weaves together two stories of tiger conservation – one a half-century ago in India, and the second, which is taking place today in Russia’s Far East, where guardians of the last Siberian tigers risk everything to save the species.
Other films include “The Biggest Little Farm,” “Ghost Fleet,” and “Youth Unstoppable: The Rise of the Global Youth Climate Movement.”
Two films at the festival share the lineage of one of the “fathers” of conservation and the sea, Jacques Cousteau. Céline Cousteau’s “Tribes on the Edge” takes his granddaughter into the depths of the Amazon jungle where she bears witness to indigenous communities’ fight for survival.
Jean-Michel Cousteau and Jean-Jacques Mantello “Wonders of the Sea – 3D” continues Cousteau’s father’s mission: educating the world about the miracles of the sea so they too will protect its vast, fragile and crucial resources.
Festival passes and tickets are on sale now. For more information, please go to earthxfilm.org.
