Films about water - free this weekend

The Tales from Planet Earth film festival starts tonight, Friday November 6th, in Madison, with an exciting lineup of films. There are several water-related offerings you shouldn't miss. Here are just a few to whet your whistle.. The full schedule of films and descriptions are found on the Web.

Trouble the Water (2008) - The film makes use of footage shot by aspiring rap artist Kimberly Rivers Roberts, as she and her neighbors in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans are trapped by Hurricane Katrina. What follows is an extraordinary portrait of terror, survival, and redemption. The film makes you question all over again the events surrounding the hurricane and how Americans think about and respond to natural disasters.

Sharkwater (2006) - Rob Stewart is a man of single-minded vision – a passionate diver and lover of sharks, he has made it his life's mission to try to stop the annihilation of the world's shark species. Traveling around the world, Sharkwater is his testament both to the importance of sharks to oceanic ecosystems and to the catastrophic devastation of sharks occurring daily due to human fear and greed.

The River (1938) - Legendary director Pare Lorentz's portraits of environmental devastation during the Great Depression remain some of the most brutal and revealing ever captured on film -- monumental landmarks in the history of American non-fiction film. In The River, he documented the effects of deforestation leading to massive soil erosion and flooding in the Mississippi River watershed.

Planning for Floods (1974) - Made for the Environmental Defense Fund in 1974 on the heels of then-record flooding on the Mississippi River, George Stoney's Planning for Floods explores the philosophy of the U.S. Corps of Engineers in controlling floods and reveals how this philosophy creates a false sense of security and mastery of nature - control repeatedly shown to be illusory in natural disaster after natural disaster.

See you at the movies!