Green filmfest at SM Supermalls

MANILA, Philippines - In line with its ongoing environmental initiatives, the SM Supermalls will screen a Green Film Festival showcasing selected award-winning documentaries that will help us know more about the world we live in and how we can do our share to help build a greener world.

A project of the Environment Committee of the SM Supermalls, these are the schedules: Sept. 23 at SM City North EDSA The Block Cinema 4; Sept. 30, SM Megamall Cinema 6; and Oct. 7 at the Mall of Asia Cinema 3. All screenings are free of charge.

Scheduled for screening are The 11th Hour, Home, An Inconvenient Truth, March of the Penguins, Planet Earth, Abong, and Ligtas Likas.

The 11th Hour is a 2007 feature film created, produced, and narrated by Leonardo di Caprio. An environmental advocate, Di Caprio shows in his film how we’ve arrived at the last moment when change is possible and what we can do to change our course.

Home is a travel notebook, showing landscapes captured from a bird’s eye view. The film calls for a new awareness, inviting viewers to stop for a moment to look at our planet and realize how we treat her treasures and her beauty.

An Inconvenient Truth is the groundbreaking 2006 docu film directed by David Guggenheim about former US Vice President Al Gore’s campaign to educate citizens about global warming and inspiring them to take action. The film chronicles Gore’s travels as he crisscrosses the globe presenting a comprehensive slide show on climate change, by his own estimate, he’s given more than a thousand times.

March of the Penguins or La Marche de l’empereur is a French nature documentary depicting the yearly journey of the emperor penguins on Antractica. Sharon Cuneta narrates the Tagalog version, Penguin, Penguin, Paano Ka Ginawa? (Penguin, Penguin, How Were You Made.)

Planet Earth is an 11-part series that presents never-before-seen footage of animal behavior, starling views of locations captured by cameras for the first time, in unprecedented high-definition techniques.

Abong, which means small home in some mountain tribes, is an epitome of our world as it is besieged by natural and human influences, poverty and affluence, mercy and intolerance. While gently depicting the bonds of a Japanese-Filipino family — the plentiful life of their Igorot tradition contiguous with the nature and loneliness they face in the city — the movie splendidly constructs an allegorical world of satire.

Ligtas Likas, an animated feature produced by Creative Media and the Film Society of the Philippines, is a 25-minute feature film written by Imee Marcos, Peter Mayshle, and Ann Angala Shy. It is a collaboration of CreaM and Sen. Loren Legarda, author of the Ecological Waste Management Act. The film aims to motivate children to practice recycling and proper waste management through the story of a young girl Maya and her friends Bobot the compact-robot, and Tatang, the nature worshipper. Together they fight the enemies of the environment, and ultimately preserve the rainforest and protect the ocean against pollution.

The Green Film Festival is one of the initiatives of the Environment Committee of the SM Supermalls to promote environmental sustainability through mall, tenant, and community endeavors while simultaneously going green with good business practices. Another of its most recent projects is the Cellphone Waste Collection, where shoppers are encouraged to drop off used mobile phones, batteries, charges, and other accessories in the Nokia Recycling bins located within the malls.