Boston Flora

Category: Movie Recommendations

  • Hortus TV

    Watch garden shows you love. Stream to your tablet, computer, or smart television. Hortus TV is offering a free seven day trial, after which you will be charged $6.99 per month, but you may cancel at any time. Right now hundreds of videos are in the current library, many of which are the eccentric British gardening shows you love, and new content is always being added. No advertisements, which is a plus, although to be fair some of the shows are available on YouTube. Visit www.hortustv.com for more information. Reviews have been positive overall.  Some examples of shows offered are Love Your Garden with Alan Titchmarsh, World of Herbs with Lesley Bremness, Open Gardens,  The Secret World of Gardens, Gardener’s World (seven seasons!),  and Dan Pearson’s Routes Around the World.

  • Tuesday, April 4, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Seed: The Untold Story

    Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds, treasured since the dawn of humankind. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared.

    SEED: The Untold Story follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. As biotech chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these heroes rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource and revive a culture connected to seeds. SEED features Vandana Shiva, Dr. Jane Goodall, Andrew Kimbrell, Winona Laduke and Raj Patel.

    The April 4 screening at the Arnold Arboretum will begin at 7, and will be followed by a discussion led by Barry Logan, Visiting Scientist, Arnold Arboretum, and Professor of Biology, Bowdoin College. Free. For more information visit www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu.

  • Sunday, February 26, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm – The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand

    Documentary filmmaker Karyl Evans has combined her two greatest professional interests – landscape architecture and filmmaking – to create The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand. Long time Garden Club of New Haven member Evans, who earned her undergraduate degree in horticulture with an emphasis in landscape architecture and a masters degree in filmmaking, has produced a documentary about the historically significant gardens of Beatrix Farrand. For the past three years, Evans has focused her attention on researching Farrand’s life and work as many Farrand gardens were being rediscovered, visiting over 40 Farrand gardens and related sites from Maine to California and Washington D.C. to photograph and videotape the gardens and to talk with curators, scholars, and volunteers who were connected to the Farrand sites. In addition, Karyl conducted research at the Beatrix Farrand Archives at UC Berkeley where she discovered never-before-published materials now included in her film. The resulting 35 minute documentary is a breathtaking film about Beatrix Farrand’s life and gardens chronicling her impressive 50 year career as a landscape architect during the first half of the 20th century. Some of the gardens Evans photographed  for the film include: the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C., the East Garden at the White House, the Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, her campus work at Yale and Princeton Universities, as well as three significant gardens in Connecticut. The film about Beatrix Farrand, who was the niece of Edith Wharton, also includes over 500 garden photographs, rare archival images, and interviews with Farrand scholars Diana Balmori, landscape historian and Garden Club of the Back Bay member Judith Tankard, as well as landscape architect Shavaun Towers. The documentary is a splendid overview of Farrand’s stunning gardens, her pioneering innovations on college campuses, and her ingenious design philosophy which has stood the test of time.

    Karyl Evans is a six-time Emmy Award winning director/producer/editor/writer of documentary films. In 2016 Ms. Evans won the National Academy of Television Arts and Science’s Best Director Emmy Award for her one hour documentary: Letter from Italy, 1944: A New American Oratorio narrated by Meryl Streep.

    Ms. Evans, owner of Karyl Evans Productions in North Haven, CT, has produced many historical documentaries over the past 25 years including The New Haven Green: Heart of a City, narrated by Paul Giamatti as well as a series of documentaries for public television including the History of African-Americans in Connecticut and the History of Connecticut’s Cities.  Ms. Evans was a full-time Professor at Southern Connecticut State University for two years, teaching film production and theory. Karyl is a Fellow at Yale University and is one of the organizers of the New Haven Documentary Film Festival at Yale.
    For more information about Karyl Evans visit her website at: http://karylevansproductions.com

    The movie will be screened at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Sunday, February 26, from 1 – 2:30 pm, and THBG members pay $5, nonmembers $20.  Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Sunday, February 11, 1:00 pm – 2:40 pm – Portrait of a Garden: A Film Screening

    Tower Hill Botanic Garden will host a screening of a documentary film Portrait of a Garden on Sunday, February 11, from 1 – 2:40 pm. In a picturesque garden on a grand country estate, two long-time friends, an 85-year-old pruning master and the gardener, tend to the espaliers. Surrounded by vegetable patches, citrus trees, the orchard and lush grapevines, they talk about food, the weather, their craft (which is quickly disappearing) and the changing world around them. For fifteen years, they’ve been working on the pear arbor. But will it finally come together this year? And what about the harvest? Will it be ready for the end-of-season banquet? Capturing one year in the life of this historic garden, the magnificent documentary Portrait of a Garden is a beautiful, transcendent viewing experience. In Dutch, with English subtitles. Member price $5, non-member price $20. Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Wednesday, January 18, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, & Saturday, January 21, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm – Hometown Habitat, Stories of Bringing Nature Home

    Come to Garden in the Woods in Framingham on either Wednesday, January 18 at 2 or Saturday, January 21 at 4 for a screening of Hometown Habitat. Catherine Zimmerman (The Meadow Project) has teamed up with Doug Tallamy, PhD and the Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council to produce a new film on native plants called Hometown Habitat . The Meadow Project and CCLC missions promote the principles of conservation landscaping and expand the practice of conservation landscaping throughout the Chesapeake Bay region.

    Hometown Habitat is a 90-minute environmental, education documentary focused on showing how and why native plants are critical to the survival and vitality of local ecosystems. Entomologist Doug Tallamy, whose research, books, and lectures on the misuse of non-native plants in landscaping sound the alarm about habitat and species loss, provides the narrative thread throughout the film. The message: “We can change the notion that humans are here and nature is some place else. It doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t be that way.” Each individual has the power to conserve resources, restore habitat for wildlife and bring beauty to their patch of earth.

    Award winning director Catherine Zimmerman and her film crew traveled across the country to visit Hometown Habitat Heroes, people – young and old and with varied backgrounds – who are reversing detrimental impacts on the land and in the water of major U.S. watersheds, one garden at a time. Catherine and the film crew wind their way through the watersheds of Florida, the prairies of the Mississippi River Basin, the streams and rivers of the Rocky Mountains, the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and Columbia River to share success stories and works-in-progress that celebrate conservation landscaping that re-awakens and redefines our relationship with Nature.

    Along with the everyday Hometown Heroes, we meet ecologists, entomologists and other experts who will share the science behind how today’s ‘native-plants-know-best’ enthusiasts, landscape architects, and conservation groups are helping 20th century-minded city planners, businesses and developers appreciate the myriad 21st century benefits of low-maintenance, seasonally-dynamic, and eco-healthy landscape installations, that respect Nature’s original best practices.

    $18 ELA members, $25 nonmembers – See more at: http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/screening-hometown-habitat-stories-of-bringing-nature-home/2017-01-18/#sthash.QuSWorED.dpuf

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  • Now Showing – Extreme Weather

    The Museum of Science is screening a 50 minute movie at its Mugar Omni Theater entitled Extreme Weather. Let famed storm chaser and award-winning giant screen filmmaker Sean Casey take you on a dramatic journey to places where few have gone before! Destinations include the edge of a 300-foot-tall calving glacier in Alaska, the front lines of massive wildfires in the Western United States, and directly in the path of deadly (yet mesmerizing) tornadoes in the plains.

    Also, follow the men and women on the forefront of climate research and the everyday heroes who put their lives on the line to help us understand and adapt to our ever-changing weather. Sponsored by MathWorks. Timed tickets are required. Order online at https://www.mos.org/imax/extreme-weather

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  • Wednesday, November 2, 7:15 pm – 8:45 pm – City of Trees

    On Wednesday, November 2 beginning at 7:15 in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, City of Trees will be screened. It is a deeply personal story about the struggle for good jobs and environmental justice in our cities. Since 1990, nonprofit Washington Parks & People has tried to reduce poverty and violence in Washington, D.C. neighborhoods by improving parks. At the height of the recession, the organization received a stimulus grant to create a “green” job-training program in communities hardest hit. They had two years to help unemployed people find jobs and care for parks in their neighborhoods.

    Steve Coleman, a grassroots environmental activist who directs the organization, must hire 150 unemployed residents to plant several thousand trees and provide training in the soft skills required to get a job. For Charles Holcomb, the paycheck offers a chance to give his newborn daughter the life he never had. For Michael Samuels, the job training is a first step forward after a drug conviction marred his employment record. For James Magruder, the program offers a chance to prove that his neighborhood roots position him as an unsung leader.

    What sounds like a simple goal — putting people back to work by planting trees — becomes complicated by a community’s distrust of outsiders and a fast-approaching deadline before the grant money runs out. Filmed in an unflinching and compelling verité approach over the course of more than two years, CITY OF TREES thrusts viewers into the inspiring but messy world of job training and the paradoxes change-makers face in urban communities every day. 76 min, USA, directed by Brandon Kramer, produced by Lance Kramer a film by Meridian Hill Pictures, in association with Kartemquin Films and Magic Labs Media. City of Trees had its world premiere at the 2015 American Conservation Film Festival and was the Audience Choice Award Winner). Fee $10. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

  • Saturday, July 16, 11:30 am – 4:30 pm – Daylily Show: Patriot Nation

    On Saturday, July 16 beginning at 11:30 am at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, The New England Daylily Society presents an exhibition where daylily enthusiasts from all over New England show their extraordinary, best grown, best groomed daylily flowers. Enjoy the educational programs offered in the theater. Also on hand will be several people selling daylilies, and a membership table to join the American Hemerocallis Society.

    EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS:
    11:30am, Theater:  Daylilies: You’re Gonna Love ’em with Patsy Cunningham
    12 to 3:30pm, Theater: Educational movie about Daylilies
    2:00 and 2:30pm: Workshop for Children – Planting Daylily Seeds in Homemade Pots with Kate Reed

    Free with admission to the gardens.  For more information visit www.towerhillbg.org.

  • Friday, December 11, 7:00 pm – What We Fish For

    Friday, December 11, 7:00 pm – What We Fish For

    The world premiere of Ted Caplow’s and Andy Danylchuk’s newest documentary What We Fish For will be on Dec 11th (7:00 PM) at the New England Aquarium’s IMAX as part of the Boston Globe’s GlobeDoc series. Dr. Ted Caplow is an environmental engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur, and the founder of Fish Navy Films LLC. He brings his expertise in sustainable food production and energy management together with his love of the sea to create films that both educate and stimulate the viewer. Film making is a natural outlet for Dr. Caplow’s analytical nature and creative impulses, and his goal is to balance entertainment with truth to discover compelling solutions to some 21st century dilemmas.

    After studying energy and then pollution dynamics at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, Ted left academia to explore his passion for sustainable design, ultimately creating the Science Barge in 2006. This hydroponic urban farm, open to the public, has been deployed on the Hudson River since 2007. The barge uses sunlight, biofuel, and captured rainwater to grow premium quality vegetables in the heart of urban areas, and hosts thousands of school children each year. Ted also invented the Vertical Integrated Greenhouseâ„¢, a high-yield hydroponic growing system for building facades and large atriums that offers world-leading efficiencies in land and water use. See more at: http://www.fishnavy.com/filmmaker/ted-caplow/#sthash.A2NF76zE.dpuf

    The event is free but you need to register via this link http://support.neaq.org/site/Calendar?id=106306&view=Detail

    WWFFai

  • Wednesday, September 30, 5:30 pm – Wilderness in America: A History of America and the Land from Conquest to Conservation

    America has a conservation legacy unmatched anywhere in the world. Almost 30 percent of the land in the United States—National Parks, National Forests, wild rivers, wilderness and other lands—are owned by the people of the United States. This film, Wilderness in America, tells the story of four centuries of American history and describes a changing view of the land by a number of leaders, writers, artists, photographers, teachers, and organizations. Join the Arnold Arboretum and the Massachusetts Historical Society on Wednesday, September 30 for a reception at 5:30 pm at the MHS headquarters, 1154 Boylston Street in Boston, followed by a Fulcrum Film screening at 6. Free, but registration requested at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu or by calling 617-384-5277.  You may see a trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvbyLW-rdU4.