Submitted by the Friday Harbor Film Festival.
Friday Harbor Film Festival’s FREE Best of the Fest series will show The Pollinators at the San Juan Island Library on Friday, April 14 at 7 pm. Following the film, Director Peter Nelson will appear by livestream to speak about the film and answer audience questions. For those who can’t attend in person, the movie will be livestreamed free. Start the film between 7 and 8 pm, on the website: fhff.org.
The Pollinators is a story of both beauty and urgency. The film is a cinematic journey around the United States following migratory commercial beekeepers as they fight to survive an environmental crisis threatening millions of honeybee hives. They strive to protect their truckloads of honeybees as they pollinate the flowers that become the fruits, nuts, and vegetables we all eat. The many challenges the beekeepers and their bees face en route reveal flaws in our simplified chemically dependent agriculture system. The filmmaker talks to farmers, scientists, chefs, and academics along the way to give a broad perspective about the threats to honeybees, what it means to our food security, and how we can improve it.
Director Peter Nelson said, “I witnessed the poisoning of hundreds of beehives by careless pesticide applications, saw wild lands essential to a robust bee population repurposed for corn and soy monoculture farming, and witnessed how a changing climate can affect the delivery of bees into orchards and fields.”
Each month through September Best of the Fest will offer an award-winning documentary along with a livestream Q and A. Programs begin at 7 p.m. Some are in collaboration with the San Juan Island Library; others are at the San Juan Island Grange. Since they’re on Fridays, they are a great “date night” activity. Here’s the schedule:
* Haida Modern – April 28 – Grange, plus a weekend of special events with Robert Davidson
* The Boys Who Said No! – June 23 – Grange
* Short Film Showcase – July 21 – Library
* Let There Be Drums – Aug. 11 – Grange
* Alan Magee: art is not a solace – Sept. 8 – Library
Details about the films in the series are available on the fhff.org website. Mark your calendar and plan to view the exceptional Best of the Fest documentaries.
