A trio of environmental documentaries to run at Center Theatre

DOVER-FOXCROFT — Nature lovers and those concerned about environmental issues will want to check out three upcoming movies at Center Theatre this fall. The films are being brought to the area by the theater in cooperation with the Maine Sierra Club. 

The award-winning, 95-minute documentary “More Than Honey”, showing at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 20, explores the phenomenon known as “colony collapse disorder” and takes an in-depth look at honeybee colonies in California, Switzerland, China and Australia because — as the film states — “Over the past 15 years, numerous colonies of bees have been decimated throughout the world, but the causes of this disaster remain unknown. Depending on the world region, 50 to 90 percent of all local bees have disappeared, and this epidemic is still spreading from beehive to beehive – all over the planet.”

At 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 20 Center Theatre guests can explore some of the country’s wildest places via National Parks Adventure. This 43-minute MacGillivray Freeman film, produced in association with Brand USA and narrated by acclaimed Academy Award-winning actor Robert Redford, is a “visually ambitious giant-screen film” offering not only a sweeping overview of the national parks’ history, but a balanced blend of “adrenaline-pumping odyssey and soulful reflection on what the wilderness means to us all.” 

The final film in the series is the 56-minute “The Global Banquet, Politics of Food” which “exposes globalization’s profoundly damaging effect on our food system in terms that are understandable to the non-specialist.” The documentary aims to debunk myths about global hunger, including: that hunger results from scarcity; that small countries don’t know how to feed themselves; and that only market-driven, chemically-based industrial agriculture can feed the world. 

This film “reveals how agribusiness squeezes out small farmers and how trade liberalization undercuts subsistence farming in the U.S., as well as in the developing world. It demonstrates how food security is linked to social development and how women, in particular, are affected by that. And it links factory farming and the alteration and patenting of life forms to degradation of the natural environment.” 

Through interviews with farmers, policy analysts and international activists, “The Global Banquet” examines “the ethical questions at the heart of the globalization debate. Beyond that, it shows how farmers, laborers, environmentalists, animal-rights activists, church groups, and students – worldwide – are mobilizing to address the situation.” 

“The Global Banquet” runs at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 15.

For guests wishing to view all three movies, package deals are available. The Center Theatre is a nonprofit performing arts center dedicated to making the arts a part of life in the Maine Highlands. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Center Theatre reopening its doors to produce affordable entertainment, arts and education. 

For more information on the Theatre or its programming, call 564-8943, stop by the 20 East Main Street location between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays, or visit www.centertheatre.org.