Features our 2021 Eric Moe Award for Best Short on Sustainability winner The Sacrifice Zone, as well as two finalists for the Award. Program will include pre-recorded filmmaker discussions.

The Ironbound district of Newark, New Jersey, is one of the most toxic neighborhoods in the country — in a one-mile stretch, residents live with a sewage treatment facility, an animal fat rendering plant, and chemical storage. Maria Lopez, a Honduran-American resident there, is waging a war for environmental justice. The Sacrifice Zone follows Maria as she leads a group of warriors who are fighting to break the cycle of poor communities of color serving as dumping grounds, so the rest of us can live in comfortable ignorance.

The Sacrifice Zone

Maria Lopez is waging a war for environmental justice. Her Newark, New Jersey neighborhood is one of the most toxic in the country and home to an infamous one-mile industrial stretch known as The Chemical Corridor. THE SACRIFICE ZONE follows Maria as she leads a group of warriors fighting to break the cycle of poor communities of color serving as dumping grounds.

Pre-recorded discussion featuring Julie Winokur (Director) and Maria Lopez-Nuñez (Deputy Director, Organizing and Advocacy, Ironbound Community Corporation), moderated by Rachel Ramirez (Journalist). Julie Winokur, Executive Director of Talking Eyes Media, has been a storyteller for over two decades, first as a magazine writer and then as a documentary filmmaker. She launched Talking Eyes in 2002 as a way to focus on creating visual media that catalyzes positive social change. Her work has appeared on PBS, the Documentary Channel, MediaStorm, National Geographic Magazine and Discovery online, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and MSNBC.com. Beyond broadcast and publication, Winokur works extensively with nonprofit organizations to develop their messages and put Talking Eyes' films to work at the grassroots level. She is on the faculty of Rutgers University-Newark and has taught at the International Center of Photography in New York. Maria Lopez-Nuñez is the featured subject of The Sacrifice Zone, a film that&nbsp;highlights the war waged by Maria, community leader and member of ICC.&nbsp;Maria has dedicated her life to this constant fight against polluting facilities and a political system that does not take into consideration the lives of our people. The film follows Maria as she leads the current fight with our community for the right to breathe clean air. Rachel Ramirez is an independent journalist covering race, environmental justice, and energy. She was born and raised in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory just north of Guam, but is now based in New York City. You can find her work published in Vox, HuffPost, Grist, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and more.

Panel Discussion: The Sacrifice Zone

Aniya Wingate is a radiant and talented African American dancer in high school in Houston, who was displaced from her home for half a year by Hurricane Harvey. Shoulders Deep translates her experience of displacement through dance, poetry, and performance. Aniya’s fear, despair, and alienation give way to the salvation, comfort, and love of family and village, where she finds the support to transform trauma into artistic expression. The film is about the existential threat to our home in the era of climate chaos and the regenerative power of coming back home after disaster strikes. Love is central to Aniya’s journey of recovery, and her movement becomes the physical expression of that love.

Shoulders Deep

Aniya Wingate is a radiant and talented African American dancer in high school in Houston, who was displaced from her home for half a year by Hurricane Harvey. Shoulders Deep translates her experience of displacement through dance, poetry, and performance.

Pre-recorded discussion featuring John Fiege (Director), Aniya Wingate (Artist and Choreographer), and Walter Hull (Artistic Director and Choreographer), moderated by Dr. Jalonne White-Newsome (CEO/Founder of Empowering a Green Environment and Economy, LLC). John Fiege is a filmmaker and photographer whose work explores our relationships with one another and the environment, probing key questions at the heart of our global ecological crisis, including how art, activism, community, and culture are vitally linked to our ecological predicament. His award-winning films have played at festivals, museums, universities, conferences, and community centers around the world, including SXSW, Hot Docs, MoMA, Big Sky, and Cannes, and received distribution on iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Sundance Now, and other platforms. His films tell stories about the clash between people and industry in the American South—the poultry industry, the BP oil spill, the Keystone XL pipeline, and now, with his current projects, the environmental justice communities where those oil pipelines are headed. He holds graduate degrees in both geography and filmmaking and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Study at the University at Buffalo. Aniya Wingate is a rising artist/youth advocate from Houston, TX, with a sharp focus on social and environmental justice storytelling through movement and poetry. Her training as an artist started with Urban Souls Dance Company, where she learned that being an artist meant being responsible. Her collaboration with Mentor, Walter Hull, and filmmaker, John Fiege landed her the lead role in the short film, Shoulders Deep. Aniya is also the subject matter of the upcoming documentary film, Raising Aniya, a coming of age film of a young girl searching for the truth in environmental justice issues in the Gulf Coast region. Walter Hull is a rising Social Artists, Thought Leader, and Youth Advocate in Houston, TX. His choreography has roots in social justice stories for marginalized and minoritized communities that he refers to as his Village Responsibility. Through his assistance in building Urban Souls Dance Company, Walter has founded the U.R.B.A.N. GIRLS Initiative, which provides space for black youth artists to navigate white privilege in the dance community and develop as servant leaders. In addition to his artistry, Walter has shaped mentoring practices as a collaborative action in youth development organizations locally and nationally.

Panel Discussion: Shoulders Deep

Feat. John Fiege, Aniya Wingate, Walter Hull, & Jalonne White-Newsome

Explores the root causes of human-elephant conflict and highlights the efforts of conservationist U Khin Maung Gyi to restore peace and balance between these two vital communities.

The Linesman: Both Sides Matter

Explores the root causes of human-elephant conflict and highlights the efforts of conservationist U Khin Maung Gyi to restore peace and balance between these two vital communities.

Pre-recorded discussion featuring Dominic Gill (Director), Dane Waters (Founder and President, The Elephant Project), moderated by Mara Webster. Dominic Gill is an award-winning director who has been shooting and directing films for the last 10-years. He utilizes his background in environmental biology along with passion for outdoor recreation and adventure to focus his films on issues dealing with our natural world. He works with outdoor brands like Black Diamond Equipment and Red Bull. Most recently he was awarded the Jackson Wild Media Award in Short Form Series for his films Last Call For The Bayou, and a German Emmy in cinematography for his work on the feature documentary Riders of Destiny. Dane Waters has worked on six continents with government officials, activists, academics and NGO’s. He has worked on presidential and prime ministerial campaigns all over the world and has traveled to over 100 countries. He has consulted on projects with the United Nations, the U.S. Department of State and the International Republican Institute. He was a political appointee in President George H. W. Bush’s administration, and served as the Political Director of the Humane Society Legislative Fund and the Humane Society of the United States, one of the largest NGO's in the U.S. Dane has been drawn to the plight of elephants since he first saw an elephant in a zoo as a kid. He grew a strong attachment to Africa through his many travels to the continent and after decades of developing and executing solutions to difficult problems, he felt it was time to use his diverse experience and skills to help do what he could to find new ideas and new solutions to this epic struggle. Mara Webster is a programmer, producer, content curator, moderator and interviewer.&nbsp;She is the Co-Founder and Head of Programming for In Creative Company, a year round digital talk series focusing on in depth craft driven discussions around the creative process across film, television, theater and the arts. Prior to this her most recent role was programming, producing and moderating screenings and talks at SAG-AFTRA Foundation both in person and online.&nbsp;She has also moderated numerous panels for other companies including Netflix, AppleTV+, HBO, IFC Films, BAFTA and numerous film festival Q&amp;A's. In her time as Director of Panels &amp; Special Events and an Associate Programmer at Tribeca Film Festival she grew the talks program creating new strands of programming in film, tv, theater, VR and music and produced the inaugural TIME'S UP conference. At Tribeca she was&nbsp;involved in programming feature films and tv where she helped to launch television into both the festivals main slate and contributed to the creation of the Tribeca TV Festival.

Panel Discussion: The Linesman

Shorts: Eric Moe Award

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Enjoy free shorts programs all summer long featuring Selections from our March 2021 Festival!

The DC Environmental Film Festival is the world’s premier showcase of environmentally themed films. Since 1993 our mission has been to celebrate Earth and inspire understanding and stewardship of the environment through the power of film.

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