A class on environmental filmmaking is helping University of Wisconsin-Madison students produce stories for this year’s “Tales from Planet Earth” film festival, which will take place over the weekend.
The class, called Ecotopia to Ecopocalypse, is being taught by New York-based filmmaker Alex Rivera, who came to Madison through the Arts Institute Interdisciplinary Artist in Residence Program.
History of science professor Gregg Mitman founded the festival in 2007 as a way to use film for community engagement and encourage critical thinking about environmental issues.
By combining class discussion with hands-on production, Rivera said he teaches students that understanding to communicate through film can be valuable to any major.
“It’s important that everybody have experience … not just taking photos of a wedding or videos of a friend, but really working through what it means to tell a story through pictures and sound,” Rivera said in the release.
The festival will be held Friday, Nov. 1 through to Sunday Nov. 3 at the Marquee Theater in Union South.
