Smithsonian Channel

This weekend Smithsonian Channel screened two new films in Shepherdstown, WV to crowded theaters at the 6th Annual American Conservation Film Festival. The festival takes place at the US Fish and Wildlife’s National Conservation Training Center, a hundred plus acres of wildlife preserve complete with all the modern amenities of a college campus.

ACFF’s mission  “is to promote outstanding films and the arts to educate and inspire people to become engaged in conservation.” This is a great place for us to screen films that are about habitat conservation and species preservation.

Zoo Vets at Work at the National Zoo

At noon on Saturday, Zoo Vets was projected in glorious HD to a full auditorium of kids and parents and got great festival buzz. The Smithsonian Channel produced show takes viewers behind the scenes of the National Zoo and documents a year in the life of keepers, vets and animals large and small. Linda Moore, a keeper from the National Zoo was there to answer questions from a very lively crowd, many of whom volunteered to be the next generation of Zoo Vets.

In the evening Seed Hunter made it’s North American premiere in a refurbished opera house in downtown Shepherdtown.The film follows Australian scientist Ken Street and his team of ‘gene detectives’ on the hunt for plant genes that can help our food withstand the impact of 21st century global warming.

His remarkable journey takes him from the drought ravaged farms of Australia, through the heart of the Middle East, to the mountains of Tajikistan, in search of the elusive wild chic pea. The ancient varieties of cereals he finds along the way get stored in the newly constructed seed bank, known as the ‘doomsday vault,’ in Svalbard Norway, safe from any planetary catastrophe.

The HD projection of Seed Hunter had a very filmic quality to it, and later that evening, the audience sparked a lively discussion of the safety of our food supply. Smithsonian Channel is very proud to be a part of ACFF for the second year running and we hope to premiere other films there next near.