Hello --

Bullfrog Communities, a project of Bullfrog Films, is pleased to announce Fall 2017 new releases for community and campus-wide screenings. New titles focus on a diversity of topics, including climate change and the environment, school gardens, labor, consumerism, peace, and the opioid epidemic. Information about the titles is below. Click through to watch trailers.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
From Josh Fox, Oscar-nominated director of HOW TO LET GO OF THE WORLD, comes AWAKE, A DREAM FROM STANDING ROCK, a film co-directed and produced with indigenous filmmakers Myron Dewey and Doug Good Feather and Oscar-nominated James Spione about the peaceful resistance led by the Standing Rock Sioux to the Dakota Access Pipeline. DENIAL is about a smart-grid and renewable energy advocate that faces down climate-change denial at every turn and a family coming to terms with unexpected truths.

LABOR, THE ENVIRONMENT AND CONSUMERISM
Similar to THE TRUE COST and its focus on the acceleration of the clothing industry, DEATH BY DESIGN
is a groundbreaking film that looks at the human and environmental costs of the electronics industry. These timely films are a window into systemic issues and provide important context for the decisions we as consumers make.

SCHOOL GARDENS
CULTIVATING KIDS is a short film that focuses on school gardens and how they can be integrated into school curriculum. It is directed and produced by the awarding-winning filmmakers of SHIFT CHANGE and WECONOMICS.

PEACE
Films that focus on peace include THE ACTIVISTS, about those who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and A BOLD PEACE, about the political history and demilitarization of Costa Rica in favor of using the financial savings to bolster public institutions and foster a peaceful society. John Pilger's THE COMING WAR ON CHINA is another new addition.

OPIOID EPIDEMIC
DR. FEELGOOD traces the history of opioid prescriptions and poses important ethical questions related to efforts to balance the problem of chronic pain with the explosion in opioid addiction.

AWAKE, A DREAM FROM STANDING ROCK
Tells the story of the massive peaceful resistance led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to the Dakota Access Pipeline through their land and underneath the Missouri River.
"A lesson in resistance for the rest of us...Evocative...not only serves as a vital record of one of the biggest protest movements since Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter, but its events are also fresh. That swift response, a wake-up call, in the form of a visual poem, is a testament to the filmmakers' artistry, and urgency."
Jude Dry, IndieWire
"Provides a powerful picture of the people who have made Standing Rock, North Dakota, one of the most-watched places on earth."
Jackie Strause, The Hollywood Reporter

DENIAL
About electricity, identity, family, and about the many ways we lie to ourselves when faced with overwhelming facts. It is the story of a family coming to terms with hard personal truths against the backdrop of a global crisis.
Audience Award, Environmental Film Festival at Yale
Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival
"Stunningly well-made...That rare documentary that actually shows us change. People and understandings, as well as climate and sexuality, are represented as fluid — messy and disruptive, but life-giving. This is an eco-film where science and technology, personal and political conflict, humility, love, and aesthetic virtuosity forge unexpected and beautiful alliances."  Marguerite Waller, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside

DEATH BY DESIGN
Exposes the unintended environmental and human costs of our digital devices.
Environmental Award Nominee, Sheffield Doc/Fest
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
"You won't look at your iPhone in quite the same way again."
Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times
"Vital. Provocative in its focus on giant American corporations."
John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
"Jaw-dropping and heartbreaking."
Hannah Clugston, Aesthetica Magazine

THE ACTIVISTS
Tells the story of activists who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including their lives, the tactics they used, and the historical context.
Best Documentary, Trinity International Film Festival
Best Local Documentary Feature, Atlanta DocuFest
"Essential viewing for all those who want to better understand the most powerful forces that are changing our world today: engaged citizens who join together in mass movements...This is what democracy looks like."
David Goodman, Co-author, Democracy Now! Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America

A BOLD PEACE
Juxtaposes Costa Rica's national policy of demilitarization with its investment in education, health, and the environment.
Best Social Benefit Documentary, Eugene International Film Festival
Grand Prize, I Will Tell International Film Festival, London
Best Exposé Feature Documentary, Peace on Earth Film Festival, Chicago
"One of the most enlightening films of our times. A fascinating documentary...Tells the remarkable story of war avoided, or transcended, again and again and again...By the film's end, this way emerges not simply as possible, not simply as a curiosity, but as the model for the future."  Huffington Post

DR. FEELGOOD
Tells the story of a preeminent pain specialist sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug trafficking — providing a window into the ethical dilemma and complexities involved in opioid painkiller prescriptions.
"As millions of Americans continue to struggle with opioid addiction and overdose deaths continue to rise, this film will be useful for initiating lively classroom and community discussions and debates about medical ethics and physician compassion and responsibility and the boundaries between treating and policing patients. The film will also raise important questions about why we continue to lack safe and effective treatments for chronic pain and why pharmaceutical companies get away with misleading marketing practices."
Dr. Shannon M. Monnat, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, Demography, and Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University

CULTIVATING KIDS
On South Whidbey Island, WA, a school farm shows that a garden can be a valuable addition to the curriculum while encouraging a healthy diet.
"So beautifully captures the excitement and joy that farm to school brings to kids, educators, and community members."
Anupama Joshi, Executive Director and Co-Founder, National Farm to School Network
"The ideal film to show all stakeholders that are either considering a school garden or have an existing garden that is needing an infusion of excitement."
Lauren Howe, Director of Slow Gardens Program, Slow Food USA
"What a great film! ...Can serve as an inspiration to schools who are less familiar with school gardens and to the communities who can benefit from them."
Chef Ann Cooper, Founder, Chef Ann Foundation, Author, Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children

THE COMING WAR ON CHINA
Reveals that the United States and China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war.
"A gripping film...a strong corrective to our bland and complacent indifference. ****" 
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"(Pilger) remains in the vanguard of journalism, able to eloquently challenge accepted beliefs and in doing so shine a light in corners you suspect other media, who sup from the same trough as those in power, would rather not venture." 
Camden Review

See http://www.bullfrogcommunities.com for a complete list of our titles. If you have questions, contact me at [email protected].

Coming Soon: EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC about the history of the organic food movement, ONE BIG HOME about mega-mansions and gentrification, CELLING YOUR SOUL about our love/hate relationship with our digital devices, TRIPLE DIVIDE [REDACTED] about water contamination from fracking, and more...

Regards,
Alex, Bullfrog Communities
[email protected]