The DC Traveler

The 16th annual Environmental Film Festival in Washington, DC presents 115 environmentally-focused films and shorts from 30 countries, on a range of green topics.   Some of the more interesting environmental subjects and green films presented during the 12-day festival schedule include:

Water, including multiple films including a new episode of the Strange Days on Planet Earth series exposing mysterious toxins found in the world’s water systems. The film ‘Til the River Runs Clear presents the clean-up efforts of the Hudson River. The festival’s last day (March 22), also coincides with World Water Day.
And on a local note, It’s Your Water–Use it …read more

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As part of the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday on January 21st, the film, “American Civil Rights Years, Eyes on the Prize, volumes 1 and 2” will be shown during the Civil Rights Film Festival at the Frederick Douglass National Historical Site in Anacostia.

Films will be shown between the hours of 11:30 a.m. and 2: 00 p.m. Sunday, January 6 through Tuesday, January 15. 
Additionally, on Sunday, Jan. 13th at 2:30 p.m., a Park Ranger will lead a discussion entitled “Frederick Douglass: The Father of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Frederick Douglas was born in to slavery in 1818 …read more

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Katherine Hepburn is an American screen legend. She holds the record for the most (four) Best Actress Oscar wins, with twelve nominations. That more than one nomination for every four films she stared in.
From comedy to drama, romance to action, she could do it all and did it successfully for over 6 decades.
During the beginning of her career she earned the nickname “Katharine of Arrogance” for refusing to sign autographs for fans. Her outspoken style and anti-Hollywood attitude along with a series of box office flops turned audiences off.
But she made a few good career choices, …read more

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Take the original Star Wars trilogy, let one man play all the characters and what do you get?
The One-Man Star Wars Trilogy… at a theater far, far away.
The sole performer and writer of this 75-minute high-energy, family-friendly production, Charles Ross, probably saw the Star Wars movies a few times too many. He’ll fight for both the Jedi Order and for the evil forces of the Dark Side. He recreates all the special effects and music as well as some of the more lovable characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, C-3PO and the ever-favorite R2-D2.

The first Star Wars movie premiered in 1977, since …read more

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If you can’t find enough holiday movies on television and need to jump start that festive feeling, visit The Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse on Sunday for their 2007 Christmas Movie Festival.
Bring the kids to meet Santa, learn to make gingerbread houses and enjoy over 9 hours of feature films and classic holiday cartoons – all for just $7.00.
On the schedule is the kid’s classic A Charlie Brown’s Christmas to Frank Capra’s story of Christmas salvation staring Jimmy Stewart, It’s a Wonderful Life, plus more.
The Drafthouse’s kitchen and bar will be open all day. Smoking will not …read more

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American travel writer and documentary maker, Karin Muller, has authored three travel books including Hitchhiking Vietnam: A Woman’s Solo Journey in an Elusive Land, where she spent seven months traveling alone through Vietnam by motorbike and on foot.
Her latest 2006 documentary film, Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa, she chronicles a yearlong quest to understand the Japanese concept of “wa” (harmony). Attempting to strip herself of her Western gaijin (foreigner) mentality, her journey helped her discover the ancient heart of modern Japan, including ideals such as unquestioning commitment, rule following, single-minded devotion to detail and the classic samurai code.  

Along …read more

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If you’re a fan of American painter Edward Hopper, as I am, the title says it all.
 
Nighthawks, the icon of American art is normally on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, where I first saw it as a kid. It’s now on display at the National Gallery of Art as part of a Edward Hopper exhibit running through January 21st.
Inspired by a Greenwich Village diner in his neighborhood,  Hopper started the painting immediately after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.  It captures the theme of being alone in the big city and lost in …read more

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It seems Washington DC has become an International film festival center.  
There’s the big DC International Film Festival, the DC Independent Film Festival, the African-American FF, the Asian Pacific FF, DC Shorts FF, the Environmental Film Festival, and the list goes on. 
This festival schedule features local indie, student, several movies that have never been screened in DC, a coupe director presentations, plus a few mainstream movies.  
My recommendations include:
I am David – a story adapted from Anne Holm’s novel North to Freedom, of a distant and emotionally absent 12-year-old boy who escapes from a Communist concentration camp with instructions to carry the letter to Copenhagen.  …read more

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Matinees at the Memorial: The U.S. Navy in Film is the new free, public film program at the U.S. Naval Heritage Center.
Their schedule includes a few classics and mostly contemporary films, but all Navy related –  fighting sailors, Navy pilots going Mach 2,  POWS, sailors on leave, women joining up, ships, planes, submarines and even a talking fish. 

August 18 – Anchors Aweigh – 11:00 a.m. – A 1945 musical comedy , staring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly on a 4-day liberty in Los Angeles. 
August 25 ― Skirts Ahoy – 11:00 a.m. – Three woman with man troubles decide to join the WAVES and …read more

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In 1966, the movie The Endless Summer chronicled two young California surfers who traveled around the world in search of the “perfect wave”.  Using a casual and non-typical documentary filming style, the movie became a cult hit and has been enjoyed by several generations of surfers, all dreaming about quitting their jobs and surfing year-round. 
Fast forward about 40 years and follow two aspiring 20-something indie filmmakers as they ditch their “soul-sucking cubicle jobs” and chronicle their coast-to-coast Segway ride and attempt to find the American dream along the way. (Check out my recent post about my recent 3-hour Segway tour of …read more

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