DamNation Film Screening

Surfrider Foundation, Newport Beach Chapter invites you to a free film screening of DamNation. Please join us for an evening outside under the stars where we view the powerful movie DamNation. We will tell you a bit about what Surfrider Foundation accomplished in 2014 and then get cozy with popcorn and hot cocoa. Pre-movie event hosted by Patagonia/SEED-People's Market at The Camp. All ages welcome. Please bring your own chairs, blankets, and re-usable coffee mug or water bottle. Raffle items from Patagonia/SEED-People's Market! No reservations or tickets necessary – we will accept viewers until the space is full.

Location: Treehouse at the CAMP (2937 Bristol St, Costa Mesa). The Treehouse is an outdoor, second-story space up the stairs past the yoga studio.

Film description:

"This powerful film odyssey across America explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of our rivers. Dam removal has moved beyond the fictional Monkey Wrench Gang to go mainstream. Where obsolete dams come down, rivers bound back to life, giving salmon and other wild fish the right of return to primeval spawning grounds, after decades without access. DamNation’s majestic cinematography and unexpected discoveries move through rivers and landscapes altered by dams, but also through a metamorphosis in values, from conquest of the natural world to knowing ourselves as part of nature.

DamNation opens big, on a birth, with the stirring words of Franklin D. Roosevelt at the dedication of Hoover Dam, and on a death, as the engineer at Elwha Dam powers down the turbine on its last day. DamNation stints neither the history nor the science of dams, and above all conveys experiences known so far to only a few, including the awe of watching a 30-pound salmon hurtling 20 feet into the air in a vain attempt to reach the spawning grounds that lie barricaded upriver. We witness the seismic power of a dam breaking apart and, once the river breaks free, the elation in watching wild salmon – after a century of denied access – swimming their way home. (87 minutes)"

View film trailer at http://damnationfilm.com/