Focus on Nature 2016

This year’s Focus on Nature series includes a cross-section of stunning and highly original films about the beauty, power, and mystery of nature, and how we affect and preserve our world. Join us each week for a screening and discussion with special guests. We’ve got not one but two programs about the awe-inspiring insect world: Bugs, a culinary eye-opener and my favorite feature from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival (along with a conversation with world-renowned chef Mario Hernandez), and our family program, Learning to See, followed by a hands-on workshop at our Media Arts Lab. We’ll look closely at New York City’s Jamaica Bay, a valuable but neglected natural resource, and at what scientists are calling the Anthropocene Epoch in a film that reveals the indelible human footprint on our planet and the people working to address its impact. And we begin with a preview of the riveting new documentary The Eagle Huntress, one of two chronicles of how traditional Mongolian ways of living with nature are changing with the times. Plus an extraordinary exhibition of breathtaking photographs from Mongolia by photojournalist and filmmaker Hamid Sardar-Afkhami is on view in our Jane Peck Gallery throughout October.

—Series Programmer Karen Sloe Goodman

This series is presented in partnership with Scenic Hudson and Groundwork Hudson Valley and made possible through generous support from the Hoch family and the van Hengel Family Fund.