About the Festival
Tales From Planet Earth is a three-day festival showcasing environmental films from around the world. This journey across the globe will explore how stories told through film shape our understanding of nature and inspire action on behalf of environmental justice and the diversity of life. All festival events are free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Donations help support the festival and will be accepted at the door.
The festival is the first public outreach event of the newly established Center for Culture, History, and Environment within the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. The Center’s mission is to bring together faculty, staff, graduate students and others from a wide array of disciplines to explore changing relationships between people and environment over time. Because human interactions with the natural world are always mediated by institutions, politics, ideas, and values, an important component of the Center’s mission is to understand how knowledge, beliefs, political economy, and culture have shaped, and been shaped, by the environment.
From travelogue-expedition films to the experimental avant-garde, from the worlds of Walt Disney to those of Jacques Cousteau, cinema has been central to how we see, think about, consume, and politicize nature in the past, present, and future. Tales From Planet Earth offers a unique opportunity for audiences to watch, reflect on, and discuss the power of film as a force of environmental change.
Maps and Accomodations
If you plan to travel from out of town to attend Tales from Planet Earth, please check out the links below for helpful information.
Downtown City Parking map
Best Western Inn on the Park Hotel
Campus Inn & Chancellor's Club
Doubletree Hotel of Madison
Hilton Madison Monona Terrace
Mansion Hill Inn
The Edgewater Hotel
The Madison Concourse Hotel
Contact Information
For more information about Tales from Planet Earth, please contact the following:
Gregg Mitman
Director, Center for Culture, History, and Environment
gmitman@med.wisc.edu
(608) 262-9140
Molly Schwebach
Outreach Coordinator, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
mayoung3@wisc.edu
(608) 265-6712