March 21, 2011
The Nelson Institute Center for Culture, History, and Environment and Tales from Planet Earth proudly present six films at the 13th annual Wisconsin Film Festival, March 30-April 3, in downtown Madison. Visit the Tales from Planet Earth portion of the Wisconsin Film Festival website for complete details about these films, their venues and to purchase tickets. Tickets are required for admission to all screenings. Student rates are available; see box office and ticket information. Note: Special guest Jennifer Redfearn, director of Sun Come Up, which was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, will hold a Q&A with the audience after her film's screening on April 3. A portion of the film appeared as a work-in-progress at the 2009 Tales from Planet Earth Community and Film Festival. The six Nelson Institute-sponsored films are: Fire, Burn, Babylon (Documentary, 2010) Directed by Sarita Siegel (53 min., color, UK) Sunday, April 3, 1:45 p.m., Chazen Museum of Art Can home be a state of mind, or must it be a place? In July 1995, a volcanic eruption on the island of Montserrat destroyed the capital city of Plymouth and forced two-thirds of the population, some 8,000 people, to become refugees. Today, many members of its Rastafarian culture have taken up residence in a modern Babylon (London, England) while longingly trying to retain cultural ties to their island home, their Zion. How I Ended This Summer (Narrative, 2010) Wisconsin Premiere Directed by Aleksei Popogrebsky (130 min., color, Russia) Friday, April 1, 5:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 3, 7:00 p.m., Stage Door Theater A suspenseful tale of paranoia and survival, How I Ended This Summer is set on a barren and isolated island in the Arctic Ocean, where its only inhabitants are Sergei, a gruff and experienced meteorologist, and his just-out-of-school intern Pavel. The two men work at a small meteorological station where they take readings from their radioactive surroundings and periodically report back to the mainland. My Dog Tulip (Animation, 2009) Madison Premiere Directed by Lynn True and Nelson Walker (85 min., color, U.S.) Saturday, April 2, 6:00 p.m., Orpheum Theater "Unable to love each other, the English turn naturally to dogs." So begins this delightful adaptation of J.R. Ackerley's 1956 memoir-cum-love story, which Truman Capote called, "One of the greatest books ever written by anybody in the world." Paul and Sandra Fierlinger's touching and bittersweet rendering — the first animated feature to be entirely hand drawn and painted utilizing paperless computer technology — recounts the author's relationship with his German shepherd Tulip, who ends up being the love of his life. Nénette (Documentary, 2010) Wisconsin Premiere Directed by Nicolas Philibert (67 min., color, France) Friday, April 1, 3:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 3, 3:45 p.m., Play Circle Theater With her casual confidence and shock of rust-colored hair, Nénette is an orangutan who owns the screen with the ease of a Hollywood starlet. A native of Borneo, she's been living in the zoo at Paris's Jardin des Plantes for 37 of her 40 years, where she has outlasted three mates and receives 600,000 visitors a year. Summer Pasture (Documentary, 2010) Wisconsin Premiere Directed by Lynn True and Nelson Walker (85 min., color, U.S.) Sunday, April 3, 11:30 a.m., Wisconsin Union Theater Locho apparently used to be a bit of a ladies' man, according to his wife Yama. But when you're a Tibetan yak herder, "settling down" just doesn't mean the same thing it does here. Summer Pasture is gorgeously filmed on the cold, high plains of eastern Tibet, revealing the fascinating details of daily life inside the family tent. Sun Come Up (Documentary, 2010) Wisconsin Premiere Directed by Jennifer Redfearn (38 min., color, U.S./Papua New Guinea) Sunday, April 3, 1:45 p.m., Chazen Museum of Art The Carteret Islanders near Papua New Guinea have a dubious distinction — they are called the modern world's first climate-change refugees. As global temperatures and sea levels rise, the ocean tides are washing away their shores and salt is seeping into their soil.