[Sdpg] One Time Showing "A LOT IN COMMON" VIDEO at SCPG Meeting in Santa Barbara Ca Thursday Dec 11 ,6:30pm
Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson
lakinroe at silcom.com
Mon Dec 8 10:41:02 PST 2003
SPECIAL ONE TIME SHOWING OF "A LOT IN COMMON " VIDEO A community garden
grows community as well as food,
flowers and consciousness.see details below of movie
South Coast Permaculture Guild Monthly Mtg/Dec 11, 6:30pm Santa Barbara
Botanic Garden
Our monthly video discussion group will meet on Thursday, December 11 at
6:30 pm at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. We will have our regular video
discussion, but will also have a wonderful opportunity to explore some of
the great resources the SB Botanic Garden has to offer---it's library, the
living collection---which features California native plants-- and the gift
and bookstore which is a dream come true for those interested in
horticulture, botany, permaculture and sustainability. South Coast
Permaculture Guild member Gail Milliken is the manager of the bookshop, and
will be available to show us around, even willing to take suggestions for
books you might want ordered. She has been very supportive in bringing in
Permaculture books as a part of her inventory for the last 4 years.
One of the main tenets of Permaculture is observation of nature and
mimicking natural eco-systems in our designs. The way many of us love and
want to plant tropical and sub tropicals you would think we lived in
Hawaii! The SB Botanic Garden offers a chance to see how plants from this
unique Mediterranean climate and region adapt to their home. Let the plants
teach! Use this local institution as a resource not only for this evening,
but continuously as you would a library. Ongoing classes and an Herbarium
are also a part of what the Botanic Garden has to offer.
Please join us for a special evening. We will have hot cider and munchies,
as usual contributions of snacks appreciated. Bring your seeds, plants etc
for exchange.
Please check the website for the Garden at
www.santabarbarbotanicgarden.org, for more information and also a map
showing where the Garden is located., Direction will be send next week
Simple directions to the Garden are to take the Mission Street exit from
the 101 freeway and make a right onto Mission Street if coming from the
South and a left if coming from the North. Then carefully follow the brown
Cultural Attraction signs provided by the city that list the SB Mission,
the Museum of Natural History and the Botanic Garden. Our address is 1212
Mission Canyon Rd. Map available on website at www.sbbg.org.
Contact Margie Bushman at 962-2571 sbpcnet at silcom.com for more info and
also ongoing events at www.sbpermaculture.org
Video one Time Showing , loaned to us special for one showing !!!!!!!!
A Lot in Common A community garden grows community as well as food, flowers
and consciousness.
"A Lot in Common" when together they turn a vacant lot in Berkeley, CA into
a blooming community garden full of lush native California vegetation,
Meet the neighbors: Grandpa Roosevelt and his grandson, Joan the single
mom, Ruthe the psychic, and Amy the metal sculptor.
They all have "A Lot
in Common" when together they turn a vacant lot in
Berkeley, CA into a
blooming community garden full of lush native
California vegetation,
eco-friendly technology demonstrations, and outdoor
artwork by local
artists. They clash over political ideals, runaway
pets and public art, yet in
the end, they grow a community of neighbors.
Interviews with urban planning visionary Jane
Jacobs, PBS reporter/author
Ray Suarez, environmentalist Paul Hawken, and Urban
Habitat co-founder
Carl Anthony, lend context and background to the
discussion of the
Commons. Landscape architect/psychologist Karl Linn
who envisioned and
orchestrated the creation of the gardens, provides
on-going commentary.
Awards:
Vermont International Film Festival
Reviews:
"A wonderful tribute to the visionary landscape
architect Karl Linn and the
energetic, creative community gardeners in
Berkeley...An exciting learning
resource." Ellen Kirby, president, American
Community Gardening
Association
"A well-crafted, humanistic documentary that kept me
thoroughly engaged!"
Danny McGuire, executive producer, KQED-TV
"A convincing argument for what Linn calls
"neighborhood commons" as well
as a poignant story about friendship and
community-building, with all the
challenges and sweetness that implies." San
Francisco Chronicle
"Stunning images, captivating story,...a work filled
with grace and artistry
that goes right to the heart." Amy Blackstone, artist
"Wonderful, touching, funny, and inspirational...it
speaks to the very nature
of why many of us think that community gardening
brings people together in
the best of ways." Beebo Turman, Berkeley Community
Gardening
Collaborative
"Brilliant...inspired!" Adam Honigman, Clinton
Community Garden, New
York City
"It's not just about a community garden in Berkeley,
it's about the human
community everywhere." Terence M. O'Driscoll,
Station Manager, WNYE
Neighbors find they have "A Lot in Common"
Indie documentary on gardening, greening and peace
coming to public television stations
nationwide
San Francisco, CA. November 15, 2003. National
Educational Television Association (NETA) has
offered national distribution for the independent
documentary feature A Lot in Common for
broadcast on public television stations around the
country in Spring, 2004. An intimate glimpse
into the lives of a handful of extraordinary
neighbors, the film follows the construction of a
community garden built on a previously vacant lot
above a subway tunnel entrance in Berkeley,
California.
But it's not all flowers and sunshine at the Peralta
Community Peace Garden. Even before
groundbreaking, controversy swirls around the
project when neighbors disagree as to the best
use for the space. Hashing it out with the landlord
and public officials, they set the stage for
what becomes a lively one-hour recounting of the
five-year story.
Landscape architect and psychologist Karl Linn—the
mover and shaker behind the building of
the garden—provides commentary throughout the
program. Having escaped the Holocaust as a
child, Linn has devoted his life to creating
remarkable, disarming places where people can
meet and get to know one another in peace and
safety. He calls this kind of communal space
the “neighborhood commons” and explains how the
ancient “Commons” can be reclaimed even
by people living in congested urban environments.
Lending credence and context as the garden story
unfolds are PBS NewsHour's senior
correspondent Ray Suarez (The Old Neighborhood),
reknown urban planning expert Jane Jacobs
(The Death and Life of Great American Cities),
environmentalist Paul Hawken (Natural Capitalism),
Director of the Ford Foundation's Sustainable
Metropolitan Communities Initiative Carl Anthony,
and British scholar David Crouch.
But the true stars of A Lot in Common are the
neighbors themselves. There's Joan the single
mom and her toddler Amy, Grandpa Roosevelt and his
grandson Josh, Phil the disabled-rights
advocate, and Ruthe the psychic, to name a few. We
see artists Amy Blackstone, Dmitry
Grudsky, and Fran Segal create stunning works of
public art for placement in the garden.
Architect Darryl DeBoer builds a bamboo arbor to
demonstrate environmentally sustainable
construction techniques. Gradually, the once
trash-strewn vacant lot transforms into the jewel of
the neighborhood, through the elbow grease and
determination of the group.
Things get tense when one gardener accepts a
donation of grass sod from a local nursery,
throwing the gardeners into a tumult: water-guzzling
sod is politically incorrect in the
all-organic, all-ecofriendly plots. Another
confrontation ensues when Ruthe lets her pet rabbit
roam unleashed through Joan's tomato patch.
But when Joan is diagnosed with cancer, the stunned
gardeners rally to her side. More than just
a space to grow vegetables, Peralta has become home
to a tight-knit community of neighbors
who respect and care for one another. Karl
commissions artist Kitti Shahoian to create a
sculpture of Joan and Amy to be placed in the
garden, which years earlier Joan had worked so
hard to help build.
“A Lot in Common is a well-crafted, humanistic
documentary that kept me thoroughly engaged,”
says Danny McGuire, a KQED San Francisco Executive
Producer. The film is Emmy Award-winning
producer/editor/camera Rick Bacigalupi's first
feature length documentary, and has been
picked up for educational distribution by
Pennsylvania-based Bullfrog Films
(www.bullfrogfilms.com
).
The video project has been endorsed by the American
Community Gardening Association,
whose Web site (www.communitygarden.org
) is a great place to find out more about this
burgeoning national interest. Over half a million
gardeners work in more than 10,000 gardens across
North America, according to the national
nonprofit, whose mission statement cites gardening
as a way to build community, foster social
and environmental justice, eliminate hunger, empower
communities, break down racial and
ethnic barriers, reduce crime, and otherwise create
sustainable communities. A community
gardening curriculum is also available from ACGA.
National Educational Television Association (NETA)
distributes award-winning programs and
series to public television stations who are members
of the Public Broadcasting System.
Offering a wide range of entertainment and
educational materials, NETA is a key partner in
public broadcasting in America.
For more on the documentary, including updates on
theatrical screenings of the 77-minute
Director's Cut and national broadcast through NETA,
visit www.ALotinCommon.com, where
downloadable clips are available for viewing.
V
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