Annual EarthDance Environmental Film Festival At Oakland Museum

The fourth annual and now international EarthDance Environmental Film Festival plays at the Oakland Museum of California the weekend of April 14 & 15 with a program packed with entertaining ways to celebrate the natural world.

Festival Director Zakary Zide has developed his one-night event into two full two days of film, music and dance performances, panel discussions, parties, and "fireside chats" with filmmakers. Festival hours are 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday and noon-10 p.m. Sunday.

"EarthDance has gone full immersion this year," Zide said. "Visitors will have access to a comprehensive environmental forum. A panel of green scientists, artists, performers, politicians, and businesspeople will be on hand both days for a dialog about bridging the gaps between art, science, and nature."

The festival's juried compilation of 40 comedies, documentaries, mockumentaries, animations, thrillers, and family-friendly offerings prove that there's no need to sacrifice sophistication for sustainability, or entertainment for ecology.

Outstanding work by local filmmakers Chris Metzler and JeffSpring ("Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea"), Beth Cataldo ("Ray Bandar: A Life with Skulls"), Judy Irving ("The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill"), Amelia Rudolph ("Project Bandaloop-Aerial Dance"), and Carolyn Scott ("Texas Gold") will be shown.

Other EarthDance highlights: Robert Dallangelo's "Flying Over Everest," a stunning doc about a man, a hang glider, and a pet eagle who attempt the impossible and succeed; Kelly O'Brien's "Seaswap," about fishermen in Alaska who contacted scientists after discovering that sperm whales were stealing their bait; Peter Mortimer's "Black Canyon," a rock-climbing epic with loose boulders, poison ivy, and vertigo on Colorado's last virgin walls; and "Oil on Ice," by Dale Djerassi and Steve Michaelson, about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, oil development, and the native Gwich'in people.

Zide has traveled the EarthDance Environmental Film Festival around the U.S. and Mexico. This year's films will screen in Norway and the Vallarta Film Festival. One screening + discussion included with museum admission. A one-day pass is $25; a weekend pass is $40. -- www.museumca.org