The first Earth Day began in April 1970, and has become a celebrated day worldwide to bring awareness to our environment.
By Genevieve Fox
Short films, guest speakers and art will raise awareness of climate change at the Great Lakes Environmental Film Festival Friday through Sunday at West Shore Community College in Manistee, Michigan.
The event brings people together to see a vision of how we can better our environment, said Zigmond Kozicki, director of the festival.
“We want to make it more than a mThe event brings people together to see a vision of how we can better our environmentedia festival,” Kozicki said. “We want to make it a real gathering of environmental people talking and spending some time looking at how we can support each other and work together.”
Zigmond Kozicki (left) and Stephanie Baiyasi (right), the producers of the two feature films A to Zig: Drought and Deluge and Great Lakes: One Water For Life that will be shown at the festival. Image: Great Lakes Environmental Festival
It’s important to get the community involved, Kozicki said. People need to realize they can’t take their environment for granted anymore.
The festival’s 10 guest speakers include Ellen Vial from the Michigan Environmental Council and Denise Keele from the Michigan Climate Action Network.
There are two feature movies, including A to Zig: Drought and Deluge which will be shown noon Friday. It’s about how climate change is increasing droughts and deluge in the US. The other is Great Lakes: One Water for Life which will be shown at noon Saturday. It’s about the importance of the Great Lakes and the action needed to protect them. Both films are produced by Kozicki and Stephanie Baiyasi. They will be shown at West Shore Community College.
Films created by students will be presented on Friday and Saturday at West Shore Community College. Student artwork will also be displayed during the festival.
The tentative schedule can be found on their website.
We want to encourage anything creative to express the concerns about climate change or encourage people to think about the environment in a more positive way, said Kozicki who hopes that next year’s festival will continue to spread the message of building a cleaner and sustainable environment for everyone.