Event

Environment for Contemplation

Three Encyclopedia Britannica Films by Bert Van Bork:

In the years immediately following the creation of the Environmental Protective Agency, Bert Van Bork made a series of 16mm educational shorts in collaboration with professors at UC Davis and the American Geological Institute. With sweeping panoramas of the open West, colorful illustrations on the progression of microcosmic life, and powerful allegations about the rapid onset of pollution, these incredibly rare films provide an expansive view of the shifting American landscape.

"Aging of Lakes" (1971, 16mm transferred to digital video, 18min)
"Falling Water" (1976, 16mm transferred to digital video, 13min) * musical score by Ray Lynch
"Evolution of Landscapes" (1986, 16mm transferred to digital video, 19min)

(Courtesy of the Chicago Film Archive)

"The Man Who Planted Trees"
1987, Dir. Frédéric Back
30min, 16mm

Considered by some to be the greatest animated film ever made, this Oscar-winning short was the astonishing culmination of Frédéric Back's painstaking frame-by-frame talents. Based on Jean Giono's allegory about a shepherd's attempt to re-forest the Alps, Back's animation lifts the story into lyrical visual poetry.

(Courtesy of the New York Public Library)