Docs Equinox Returns to SAC
Pictured Above: A still from “Patrick and the Whale,” showing Sunday, April 16 at the Docs Equinox festival.
In collaboration with Hamptons Doc Fest, Southampton Arts Center will present Docs Equinox, a three-film series, April 14 through April 16, in celebration of Earth Month.
The program, themed “All In for the Aquifer,” will begin at 5:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday evenings with cocktail receptions and information available from the “Water Central Hub” of five environmental groups, including Group for the East End, The Nature Conservancy, Peconic Estuary Partnership, Surfrider Foundation, and Peconic Baykeeper.
Keynote speaker Maya van Rossum will discuss the New York State Green Amendment on Friday evening at 7 p.m. , followed by a 7:30 p.m. screening of “Invisible Hand,” produced by Mark Ruffalo and directed by Joshua Pribanic and Melissa Troutman. Following the film, Pribanic and Troutman will do a Q&A via Zoom.
The film opens in the fall of 2014, when, for the first time in United States history, residents of Grant Township, Penn. filed a lawsuit defend its ecosystem’s ‘right to exist.’
For attempting such a radical act, Grant’s rural community of 700 people were sued by a corporation, then by the state government, and began a battle to defend the watershed they call home through civil disobedience.
The water they drink and the Rights to Nature laws they’ve passed are all on the line in this story.
On Saturday, following the second 5:30 p.m. Water Hub and reception, Hamptons Doc Fest will present a 7 p.m. screening of “The Grab,” produced by Nate Halverson and directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Following the film, Halverson and Cowperthwaite will participate in a Q&A via Zoom.
“The Grab,” Cowperthwaite’s newest documentary, is an investigative thriller that offers insight into the truth behind the colonization of our world’s most precious nature resource: Water.
The film follows journalist Nathan Halverson of the Center for Investigative Reporting and his team as they track leaked documents.
The film’s title refers to land grabs by governments in China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other powerful entities around the world, as they try to gain control of food and water outside their borders.
The weekend’s films conclude with a screening of “Patrick and the Whale” on Sunday, April 16 at 2 p.m.
The film is directed by Mark Fletcher with cinematographer Patrick Dykstra. Following the film, Fletcher and Dykstra will participate in a Q&A via Zoom.
For 20 years, Patrick Dykstra has dedicated his life to traveling the globe, following, and diving with whales. Over the years, he has learned how whales see and hear, how they perceive other creatures in the water, and how they behave at close quarters.
In Dominica in 2019, Patrick had a close encounter with a female sperm whale. He felt an overwhelming sense that she was genuinely trying to communicate.
Employing stunning cinematography, and with a keen ear tuned to the whale’s song of clicks and whistles, the film follows Patrick as he takes us under the seas again to search for the special whale he named “Dolores,” so she can help him show us the hidden world of her species.
Tickets to each day’s events are $15 for general admission, $10 for SAC and Hamptons Doc Fest members and $5 for students.
Tickets can be purchased in advance on the Southampton Arts Center’s website, southamptonartscenter.org.
