Climate Action Day Film Festival
The illuminated main exhibition space of the Lamont Gallery was filled with the low murmur of students and teachers. On this special evening, the customary paintings and sculptures no longer took center stage, making way for a series of flashing videos covering the gallery walls. On April 26, the Academy’s first Climate Action Day Film Festival, “The Three Ecologies,” premiered to the Exeter community.
Inspired by French social theorist and political activist Felix Guattari, director and curator of the Lamont Gallery Lauren O’Neal created this event to express the idea that “there could not be sustainable and effective environmental movement if there were not parallel, radical global transformations on mental and social registers.”
After enlisting the help of music Instructor Jon Sakata, Lamont’s adult and student curators went on a school-wide search to find the best student and faculty filmmakers who were also passionate about environmental issues. English Instructor Jason BreMiller, chair of the Climate Action Day committee, took on the responsibility of selecting films that would be shown at the festival.
Seven short films made the final cut; Sakata was proud to have a range of short movies that explored “not only very different facets of the ecological but very different approaches to filmic technique and strategy.”
Senior Magisha Thohir, a gallery curator involved in the selection process, shared that she enjoyed going through submissions that combined art, activism and environmentalism. “One thing that surprised me was how a lot of the films had very disturbing styles that made the viewer question things,” Thohir said. “The superimposition of images, noise, music and text made one’s perspective constantly skewed.” Though she appreciated the creativity, Thohir wondered if the high level of sophistication turned away viewers who would prefer viewing pieces that were less abstract.
Upper Jacob Zimmerman created a film entitled, “The Paranormal Ecology,” which contrasted the built environment of an Exeter dormitory with the natural environment, represented by a squirrel scratching its paws on the window panes. With this symbolism, Zimmerman wanted to point out “the romanticism that people often use to soften their encounters with the natural world.”
Meanwhile, seniors Wendi Yan and Cameron Nafaji created “Omela,” a film which, as Nafaji said, aimed to “juxtapose images and videos together to create mental relationships between things that people might sometimes not create within their minds: mental ecology.”
Yan recalled strolling around campus with Najafi to look for appropriate shots, stumbling upon a bench by Swasey with engravings of a rose imagery. “We had a footage of that put it next to the footage of an actual flower [...] we made connections that were not super explicit by layering imageries on top of each other, after watching everything you could realize the links,” she said.
Lower Elizabeth Kostina created a documentary-type video about her social experiment searching through random trash bags around campus. Through her hands-on exploration, Kostina explored the culture of Exonians and their knowledge on recyclable trash. For her, the festival opened up an opportunity to combine two biggest passion, making movies and advocating for the environment.
Upper Sarah Liberatore, who participated in the festival as part of the Contemporary Club and as an audience member, appreciated diverse artistic forms presented. “I think it’s really cool when different types of art can come together to still talk about a common issue,” she said.