Whole Foods Market's Do Something REEL Film Festival

The Wexner Center and Gateway Film Center are hosting the Columbus presentation of this nationally touring program that features six films about issues affecting our health and the health of our planet.

An initiative of Whole Foods Market, Do Something REEL is being presented in 70+ cities throughout April in celebration of Earth Month. The line-up provides a moving, eye-opening look at the choices we make and the impact those choices have on our bodies, our economy, and our environment. Topics and locales range from vanishing bee populations to the evolution of the national school lunch program, and from rural West Virginia to inner city Detroit.

Check back to find screening times. Click through and follow the links from each title to learn more about that film.
Bag It
(Suzan Beraza, 2010) 12:00 PM
This highly entertaining and eye-opening film follows “everyman” Jeb Berrier as he navigates our plastic world. Jeb is not a radical environmentalist, but an average American who decides to take a closer look at our cultural love affair with plastics. (79 mins.)

Lunch Line
(Mike Graziano and Ernie Park, 2010) 1:45 PM
This deeply affecting film follows six kids from one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago as they set out to fix school lunches—and end up at the White House. Their unlikely journey parallels the dramatic transformation of school lunch programs from a patchwork of local anti-hunger efforts to a robust national feeding program. (60 mins.)

On Coal River
(Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Wood, 2010) 3:15 PM
A compelling and transcendent narrative about the human costs of coal and strip-mining, this provocative story unfolds as a modern-day David vs. Goliath tale, as four residents of the Coal River Valley in West Virginia transform themselves into fearless and informed experts on mountaintop removal and environmental heros. (80 mins.)

PLANEAT
(Shelley Lee Davis and Or Shlomi, 2010) 5:00 PM
This visually stunning film tells the story of the scientists, farmers, and chefs tackling one of the greatest problems of our age: Western culture’s love affair with meat and dairy foods. A mouth-watering personal and culinary journey reveals the extraordinary medical and environmental benefits of eating your veggies. (78 mins.)

Urban Roots
(Mark MacInnis, 2010) 6:45 PM
Urban Roots tells the powerful story of a group of dedicated Detroiters working tirelessly to fulfill their vision for locally grown, sustainably farmed food in a city where people have found themselves limited to the lifeless offerings of fast-food restaurants and stores stocked with processed food from thousands of miles away.

Vanishing of the Bees
(George Langworthy and Maryam Heinen, 2009) 8:30 PM
Narrated by Oscar-nominated actress Ellen Page, this cautionary tale examines the mystery of the disappearing bees and its links to industrial farming and our attitudes toward the natural world. The real-life drama stars the commercial bee farmers who rang the alarm bell when their bee colonies collapsed and their businesses were decimated. (90 mins.)