Back From the Brink Community Film and Conversation

Contact: Carol Valentine (541) 761-4746, [email protected]

Back from the Brink Community Film and Conversation Series presents:

Sponsored by Illinois Valley Indivisible, Illinois Valley Sierra Club, and Rusk Ranch Nature Center

If you’ve tuned in to the news lately, you’ve heard more and more frequent stories of flood, fire, drought, rising sea level, superstorms and species threatened with extinction. As humans, it sometimes seems our only choices are despair, escape, or denial.  Local volunteers who are feeling the urgency of humanity’s  situation are organizing the Back From the Brink Community Film and Conversation Series to help us address the planetary crises we and our fellow species face, and to learn and discuss what we can do to stop the harm and allow the planet to heal.

“Our home, our mother earth and therefore ourselves, are in grave danger.  Climate crisis is upon us and will grow exponentially if we do not act now.  Life for us and our descendants could be dramatically changed for the worse.  But there is a moment of opportunity to make change, to regenerate and preserve our home.  And it is now,” said Patty Downing, director of Rusk Ranch Nature Center, one of the event’s sponsoring organizations.

The first film in the series, Call of Life, is set to screen Wednesday, January 15 at the Southern Oregon Guild Gallery,  24353 Redwood Hwy (RCC Belt Bldg.) in Kerby.  Doors open at 6 PM and the film will begin at 6:30. Admission is free, with donations encouraged to cover licensing and other costs.

Community members can enjoy refreshments and connect with local nature-based organizations before each film.  A facilitated community conversation will follow each screening to create a safe space to share thoughts and feelings, along with ideas for personal and community solutions and actions.

“Call of Life is such an important film, and our conversation time afterward is equally important. I’m really looking forward to the film and our dialogue together,” said community activist and licensed therapist Jerry Allen, who will help facilitate the post-film conversation.

“This film made me feel the urgency of the issue and provided clear actions we can take,” added Illinois Valley Indivisible organizer Jack Dwyer.

Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction investigates the threat to Earth’s life support systems from unprecedented loss of biodiversity.  But it also considers how our cultural and economic systems, along with deep-seated psychological and behavioral patterns, have allowed this situation to develop, continue to reinforce it, and even determine our response to it.  Finally, Call of Life examines the responses needed to mitigate the impacts of mass extinction, and reminds us that “unique among all human generations, those of us alive today have been given a great opportunity: the chance to preserve the vitality and magnificence of the living planet that sustains us, and is our only home.”

The film and conversation series is a collaboration by Illinois Valley Indivisible, Illinois Valley Sierra Club, and Rusk Ranch Nature Center. For more information contact (541) 761-4746 or [email protected].