OntheWilderSide

Wednesday, May 4 at 7:30pm

INTO ETERNITY

In Person: KARL GROSSMAN, Professor of Journalism at SUNY Old Westbury

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoyKe-HxmFk&feature=player_embedded]

$9 Members / $13 Public / Includes reception. Tickets can be purchased online, www.CinemaArtsCentre.org at the box office during theatre hours or by calling Brown Paper Tickets toll free at 1-800-838-3006

Nuclear waste is radioactive for 100,000 years. This haunting documentary explores the morality, philosophical issues, and practical challenges of creating an underground facility that must last so unimaginably far into the future …and never be opened. INTO ETERNITY screens at CAC’s monthly Reel to Real: Documentary Film Series on Wednesday, May 4 at 7:30pm with guest speaker Karl Grossman, Professor of Journalism at SUNY Old Westbury, who has focused on investigative reporting on energy and environmental issues for more than 40 years.  He is the host of the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up http://www.envirovideo.com/) and the author of numerous books. Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave , Huntington . 631-423-7611

Onkalo (Finnish for “hiding place”) is under construction: it’s a cavernous world of tunnels and corridors, a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste, meant to last 100,000 years (that’s 20 times as long as the pyramids have so far). Conceptual artist Michael Madsen’s film is a creepy, eerily elegant meditation on human folly, punctuated by philosophical and historical references, that asks: how do you keep 3,000 future generations from inadvertently opening this Pandora’s Box? Should markers be posted in every language or in hieroglyphics that say “keep out”? (Someone suggests Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” might work nicely.) Would it be better not to post any notice and hope no one will chance upon it? And what about the Ice Age predicted to occur in a mere 60,000 years? Will the weight of the ice impact the structural integrity of Onkalo? If you thought the Gulf oil spill was scary… Click HERE for Official Website.

From NIRS: 

A new film on radioactive waste disposal that will be making its U.S. debut in New York City on Wednesday, February 2, 2011.

We have screened the film and think it will be of interest to you. Here’s a brief review by NIRS’ Mary Olson :

Those in the United States who support the renewal of a deep geologic repository program in the wake of the cancellation of the Yucca Mountain site will be extremely interested in this thoughtful portrait of Onkalo, the bedrock repository program in Finland . A blend of “Deep Time” work, perhaps inspired by the Nuclear Guardianship vision fostered by Joanna Macy and others, and frontal interviews with today’s top scientific experts, engineers, technicians and policy-makers in the nuclear arena of Finland, this piece manages to confront multiple dimensions of the nuclear dilemma. We see and hear Director Michael Madsen speaking to someone of a generation in the far distant future, and we see portrait-level documentation of the people responsible for designing and implementing this program grapple with his invitation to do the same.

In the end, this film is a deep, complex portrait not only of us as a species capable of capturing combustion (fire) and now fission (a second fire), but it is also a portrait of this enormously resource-intense nuclear technology and its “child” – inevitable waste. While the film does not challenge the fundamentals of deep geologic isolation, it certainly presents a strong voice in opposition to making very much more of this extremely vexing waste product.

Since 1973, presenting the best U.S., International, Independent & Repertory films on 3 screens 365 days of the year, in a comfortable ambience including the sculpture garden & The Sky Room Café, the Cinema Arts Centre is located at 423 Park Ave (just south of 25a), Huntington, NY 11743 (25 miles east of New York City). Admission for regular programs: $10.00. Discounts for members, seniors, students & children. CAC is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization. For further information call 631-423-7611. To sign up for weekly email schedule: info@CinemaArtsCentre.org  Membership and Schedule: www.cinemaartscentre.org/

The mission of the Cinema Arts Centre is to bring the best in cinematic artistry to  Long Island , and use the power of film to expand the awareness and consciousness of our community

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• Into Eternity 2/2 -2/15/11 & Trailer

Filed under: Calendar, energy, events, film, grassroots democracy, green, health, local, long island, Long Island Politics, News, politics Tagged: | Documentary film, Into Eternity (documentary), Karl Grossman, Nuclear, Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, Radioactive waste, united states