Go green for Valentine's at the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival

[THE WILD AND SCENIC ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL takes place Saturday February 16th at starting at 6:00 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.]

Reporting by Charles Cassady, Jr. 

It’s the weekend of Valentine’s Day. Where to take your sweetheart for an experience that deepens and defines your releationship?

Okay, guys, first know this about your sweetheart (keep in mind I’ve only dated Cleveland girls; your results may vary geographically):

           --She probably really doesn’t love or fancy you very much. She just thought you might have some good career-related connections. Or maybe she saw you driving your dad’s sporty car as a loaner while your own 1993 Escort was in the shop again for repairs and assumed you had lots of money and/or access to cool narcotics.

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             --She is dazzled by bright, shiny objects and things on screens.

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       --She is, politically correctedly, passionately concerned about the environment, global warming, and the welfare of all living things (except for you).

Then the place for the perfect romantic idyll is University Circle, whose cultural institutions and museum-collections will make memories. Memories that will help you later visualize your sweetheart being axed to pieces by knights in suits from the Art Museum’s Armor Court, or devoured by a T.rex skeleton from the Natural History Museum.

And it is at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, on Saturday night, that the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival screens. This is a traveling collection of short subjects and features, animation and live-action, documentary and meta-narrative, addressing concerns about nature and the outdoors.

Entries come from all over the world, and address aspects of pollution, birding, cycling and more. The presentation is in two parts, with an intermission Q&A. One of the pictures sure to be discussion-worthy is the closing 44-minute nonfiction KADOMA, about South African-born Hendryk Coetzee, who led an unprecedented kayak expedition through the seldom-traveled river networks of the Congo. The odyssey, in late 2010, began in exhilaration but ended in tragedy – hey, much like many a Valentine’s Day rendezvous.

Movies begin at 7 p.m., but doors open at 6 p.m. for a fair featuring local adventure clubs and eco-societies. There will also be refreshments, a cash bar, and raffle prizes.

Tickets to the Wild & Scenic Enivronmental Film Festival cost $15 apiece. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is located at  1 Wade Oval, off Euclid Avenue. For more information call  216.231.4600  or  log onto www.cmnh.org.

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