by Trish Riley
Cinema Verde has brought international films about environmental challenges around the world to audiences here in Gainesville with our award-winning festival and now on our Cinema Verde Channel.
All of this has been made possible thanks to the tireless efforts of hundreds of student interns and volunteers, generous donors and community organizations. I am grateful for such support and relieved to know that so many in our community realize the importance of facing and fixing these problems.
Alas, we are still in an ever-shrinking minority. The governor who passed legislation disallowing references to climate change in official documents has also vetoed all state funding of the arts, shutting us down at the state level. Local funding for nonprofit arts and culture is so limited competition is fierce.
I’m reaching out to businesses with concern for fellow citizens and corporate social responsibility to help us inform the public about environmental issues and sustainable solutions – Cinema Verde needs professionals in technology, marketing and administration to succeed.
We’ve presented more than 500 films over the past 15 years. Our audiences have seen the devastation of nuclear radiation in Chernobyl, broken fuel pipes polluting water supplies in Ecuador, communities lacking freshwater in Africa and Myanmar, new mothers concerned about the impact of synthetic chemicals saturating their newborn babies in Europe as well as thee United States, the loss of animal species and insects along with our carbon-sink forests, social injustice and egregious treatment of animals in the name of agriculture and entertainment.
Together we’ve learned about these and so many more environmental concerns and how the affected communities are working to solve them. Today more than 240 of these films are available for continued viewing worldwide on our Cinema Verde Channel on the Roku platform as well as on our website, www.CinemaVerde.org. Readers can find constantly updated news coverage of the environment on our website, too, at GoGreenNation News.
We have offered our channel to teachers, students and families across Florida, where public education provides invalid information about the environment funded by the fossil fuel industry. At Cinema Verde, we believe that ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is power. It is vital for students to understand the perils they face so they can better prepare for their future. It’s incomprehensible that so many in business and government are blatantly destroying our children’s future just to put dollars in their pockets. With legislation afoot to label nonprofits as terrorist organizations, it’s clear this work will only get more difficult.
How can you help us protect your children and theirs? Connect us with sustainable businesses whose work we can showcase with an ad on our Cinema Verde Channel on the Roku and send them my way: TrishRiley@cinemaverde.org
–Trish Riley is an award-winning investigative journalist,environmental author and director of Cinema VerdeEnvironmental Film Channel and Festival.