Salina Art Center

September 28, 2010
Film Discussion: DIRT! THE MOVIE

with Wes Jackson
President of The Land Institute

at the Art Center Cinema
150 S. Santa Fe
following the 5:30 pm screening of the film

In conjunction with the film Dirt! The Movie, showing at the Art Center Cinema September 24–30, the Salina Art Center will host a film discussion facilitated by Wes Jackson, President of The Land Institute at the Art Center Cinema.  The discussion by Jackson, who is featured in the film, will take place immediately following the 5:30 pm screening of the film that evening.

Wes Jackson earned a BA in Biology from Kansas Wesleyan, an MA in Botany from University of Kansas, and a PhD in Genetics from North Carolina State University. He established and served as chair of one of the country’s first environmental studies programs at California State University-Sacramento and then returned to his native Kansas to found The Land Institute in 1976. He is the author of several books including New Roots for Agriculture and Becoming Native to This Place, and is widely recognized as a leader in the international movement for a more sustainable agriculture. He was a 1990 Pew Conservation Scholar, in 1992 became a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2000 received the Right Livelihood Award (called the “alternative Nobel prize”). In 2005 he was honored by Smithsonian Magazine as one of the 35 innovators who made a difference.

Dirt! The Movie
Dirt.  Many of us, as children, were warned to stay away from dirt even before we were warned to stay away from fire, traffic, and drugs.  Anything that gets dirty becomes “bad.”  But as directors Bill Benenson, Gene Rosow, and Eleonore Daily contend, humanity’s relationship with dirt was not always so adversarial.  It was the Industrial Age that gradually turned us against dirt, souring our one-time friendship with this nurturing substance that has provided shelter, food, medicine, toys, and building material.  The film takes its tone and perspective from William Bryant Logan’s book Dirt:The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, and provides a light-hearted but serious-at-the-core look at the ramifications of our aversion to dirt.  This globe-trotting documentary introduces us to farmers in India and Rikers Island inmates working on a greenhouse project; discusses strip mining and the Dust Bowl; shows dirt being eaten and used to make houses; and employs benevolent humor and animation to make some “down to earth” points.  Jamie Lee Curtis provides some evocative narration that helps make us reconsider what we’ve always thought about dirt.  The film is likeable and good-natured, tweaking our sensibilities but seriously asking us to give dirt a chance.  It’s not a fuzzy-headed, granola-eating, tree-hugging political statement despite the central idea behind the film.  What Dirt! The Movie really wants us to do is lose our fear of Nature.  Actually, viewers might feel like they’re revisiting their childhood, returning to an age when dirt wasn’t all that bad—in fact, sort of fun.  The film celebrates that child-like sense of innocence but makes plenty of intelligent points, offering rare insights into “alternative” styles of living and using the land.  Filled with wry, humorous, and sobering stories about dirt, the film is held together by its gentle, agreeable tone and a genuine love of Nature that’s downright infectious.  Dirt! The Movie is an informative, entertaining, and eye-opening look at something everyone takes for granted.

For more information about Dirt! The Movie visit dirtthemovie.org, and for information about Wes Jackson and The Land Institute visit landinstitute.org. For more details on the film discussion, showtimes, an expanded film review, or a complete Art Center Cinema film flyer (PDF), please visit salinaartcenter.org or call the Art Center at 785-827-1431.