DC Environmental Film Festival Screens Movies on Environment, Conflict

The 16th Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital, which will run March 11-22, 2008, will feature a screening of Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, about the Nobel Prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist, as well as the world premiere of Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives: The Environmental Footprint of War, which examines the environmental damage caused by war.

As part of the festival, on March 14, the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) will host the Washington, DC premiere of Arid Lands, an intriguing look at the impacts of the Hanford nuclear site on the land and people of the Columbia River basin. Home to two-thirds of the United States' high-level nuclear waste—and the source of the plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki—the Hanford site is the focus of the largest environmental cleanup in history.

In addition, on March 19, the Wilson Center's China Environment Forum will host the Washington, DC premiere of The Green Dragon, which explores the rise of China's green building movement. A discussion with producer Caroline Harrison will follow the screening.

As part of last year's festival, ECSP hosted a screening and discussion of Maquilapolis: City of Factories, which spotlighted the struggles of women working in sweatshops in Tijuana, Mexico.