The Sustainable Practices Sustainability Film Series is dedicated to screening films that fit within the accepted definition of sustainability. Therefore, our films are focused on social justice, environmental justice, and economic equity themes.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have suspended our in-person events at the Chatham Orpheum Theater.
Sustainable Practices Sustainability Film series has moved to a virtual, on-demand, platform. Tickets for our films can be purchased online and films can be viewed at a location of choice during the nine-day active period of a screening.
The Sustainability Film Series will screen Coded Bias from February 27 through March 5.
See the film description below to purchase tickets.
Beatrix Farrand’s American Landscapes, follows award-winning public garden designer Lynden B. Miller as she sets off to explore the remarkable life and career of America’s first female landscape architect—Beatrix Farrand. Farrand was responsible for some of the most celebrated gardens in the United States and helped create a distinctive American voice in landscape architecture. Although she created gardens for the rich and powerful, including John D. Rockefeller, Jr., J.P. Morgan, and President Woodrow Wilson, she also was an early advocate for the value of public gardens and believed strongly in the power of the natural world to make people’s lives better. Through the documentary, Miller journeys to iconic Farrand gardens, engaging designers, scholars and horticulturists in a spirited dialogue about the meaning and importance of this ground-breaking early 20th-century woman. Lynden Miller’s experience as New York City’s most prominent public garden designer is woven into a wide-ranging biography of Farrand’s life and times.
Tickets will be available for purchase starting January 15.
No Time to Waste celebrates 99-year-old national park ranger Betty Reid Soskin’s life, work, and urgent mission to restore critical missing chapters of America’s story. The film follows her impressive trajectory from a kitchen stool in a tiny theatre to reaching national and international audiences, relaying the stories of her fascinating personal journey, from her experiences as a young worker in a WWII segregated union hall, through her multi-faceted career as a singer, activist, mother, legislative representative, and park planner. In her present public role at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historic Park, Soskin illuminates the invisible histories of African Americans and other people of color, and her efforts demonstrate how her work has impacted the way the National Park Service conveys such history to audiences across the US, challenging fellow citizens to move together toward a more perfect union.
Tickets will be available to purchase starting February 1.
Rife with violence by both youth and staff, and proven to be ineffective in meeting the needs of youth, many of America’s juvenile prisons are failing today’s young people. Most of today’s facilities depend on punishment, including solitary confinement and pepper spray, to treat children. For youth who have already faced unimaginable traumas in their short lives, punishment only prepares them for chaos and scarcity.
Like Any Other Kid provides a rare glimpse into the inner-workings of one of the most promising developments in juvenile justice reform: the use of non-punitive, therapeutic programs to change behavior and help youth re-enter their communities. Following the intimate relationships between incarcerated youth and staff in three unique facilities across the country over the course of three years, the film shows how these programs work. Based on the Missouri approach, where love and structure, instead of punishment, are used, these programs guide and teach youth how to take responsibility for themselves. Through scenes of conflict, vulnerability, reflection, commitment, and joy, the youth transform before our eyes. Like Any Other Kid shows us the great potential of these youth if we let them be just that: like any other kid.
The screening of this film is co-sponsored by Nauset Interfaith Association.
Modern society sits at the intersection of two crucial questions: What does it mean when artificial intelligence increasingly governs our liberties? And what are the consequences for the people AI is biased against? When MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini discovers that most facial-recognition software does not accurately identify darker-skinned faces and the faces of women, she delves into an investigation of widespread bias in algorithms. As it turns out, artificial intelligence is not neutral, and women are leading the charge to ensure our civil rights are protected.
CODED BIAS explores the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.
The screening of this film is co-sponsored by Nauset Interfaith Association.