“Future-Perfect” sustainability exhibit opens Thursday at UDC

One group made it easier for DC residents to get to the grocery store by bringing the store to them. Others built an urban farming culture in the second poorest city in the US.

These stories and more are part of the Future-Perfect Project, a Goethe Institut exhibit that’s been traveling and collecting stories from all over the world. Next stop: UDC.

The College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES), with the Goethe Institut, is hosting an opening reception on Thursday, September 10th. RSVP here. The exhibition will be open for viewing weekdays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. until October 9th at 4200 Connecticut Ave., NW, Building 32, Suite 200.

The exhibitors are also screening two films:

Recipes for Disaster, Thursday, September 24, 2015, 5:30 p.m.
Finland, 2008, 63 min Director: John Webster
This film chronicles the efforts of director John Webster’s family to go on an “oil diet” in order to limit their carbon footprint and its disastrous environmental consequences like global warming. It reveals the surprising extent to which petroleum-based products figure in our everyday lives, including home heating and electricity, transportation, food, plastic products, clothing, and even toothpaste and shampoo. Webster’s family eventually gives up their car, although his wife and son are quite reluctant about it. Archival footage of consumer society from the 1960s provides an ironic contrast to their sacrifices, and on-screen text and charts detail environmental statistics about individual contributions to greenhouse gases. Winner, Best Documentary Film at the Jussi Awards, which is the Finnish National Film Prize. RSVP here.

Before the Flood, Thursday, October 1, 2015, 5:30 p.m.
China, 2005, 147 min Director: Yifan Li, Yu Yan
The Chinese town Fengjie along the Yangtze River has to be abandoned because it lies in flooding area of the newly built Three Gorges Dam, the largest dam on earth. But Fengjie’s citizens contend with administrators and each other over the residences in “New Fengjie,” which are allocated via lottery and are far smaller than the homes they’ve worked a lifetime to build. This documentary shows the clash of the citizens with the communist administration and collectivism over the course of two years. Winner, Wolfgang Staudte Award at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. RSVP here.