AFI Silver Theater

Saturday, June 16-----SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival is setting an example by being one of the first such festival events to actively try and reduce its carbon footprint and demonstrate how it can run its Festival efficiently with an eye towards energy conservation. This reporter, when told that the Festival wanted to encourage visitors to use public transporation to come from the Airport to the DC suburb of Silver Spring, was happy to do his part (although the Festival travel coordinator pointedly mentioned that not everyone arriving was ready to make the same sacrifice).  With uber-environmentalist Al Gore a keynote speaker at last year's event, the organizers of SILVERDOCS made a strong commitment to look at its own operations, during the year-long planning and the actual five days of the event.  By securing wind-generated electricity for the entire week, the Festival has shown remarkable initiative in becoming one of the country's first carbon-neutral festival events. With so many films in the program advancing environmental concerns and solutions, this is only right and appropriate.

As quoted in the Washington Post, SILVERDOCS Associate Director Amy King announced that she and her colleagues "are doing our part this year to walk the walk. We decided that if we're showing films that explore these environmental issues, we should set an example as a big public event that can influence its audience." Aside from the wind power, the Festival has printed its posters and information brochures on recycled paper, using an  environmentally certified printer. Festival t-shirts available for sale here were made from organic cotton and imprinted with water-based inks. Even the souvenir bags given out to filmmakers and industry attendees have been recycled from reused soda bottles. By far the most significant endeavor has been the acquisition of 100,000 kilowatt-hours of "carbon offset" wind-power electricity to power the AFI Silver Theater's projectors, marquee and popcorn machines.  The power was donated by Clean Currents, a Silver Spring energy broker that specializes in green electricity.

With these efforts, SILVERDOCS has demonstrated that it is indeed "walking the walk" and draws a line in the sand for other Festival events to follow and even surpass these efforts. Now if only the Cannes Film Festival could harness the sheer electrical power of all those popping flash bulbs of its thousands of papparazzi photographers, that would solve our dependence on foreign oil in a matter of minutes. You go, SILVERDOCS........

Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Online Dailies Editor