DOC NIGHT – A DOCUMENTARY SCREENING & DISCUSSION SERIES
AN SDFF, TRIM TAB MEDIA + RIALTO CINEMAS® COLLABORATION
Doc Nights is a collaborative effort to bring together the North Bay filmmaking community (in person or virtually) for a monthly screening series featuring award-winning documentaries about the environment, social justice, adventure, art and music.
Each screening features an independent documentary, a post-screening discussion with the filmmaker at the Rialto Cinemas® in downtown Sebastopol. Virtual attendees will be able to livestream the screening and participate in the discussion.
After each event, attendees are invited to gather at Fern Bar for filmmaker drinks, discussion and networking.
Fall Doc Night Series Wraps Dec. 12 with Dear Santa Screening + Filmmaker Discussion
Sebastopol’s Fall Doc Nite series will be wrapping up on December 12 at 7 p.m. with a screening of the Operation Santa doc Dear Santa (2020) at 7 p.m. at Rialto Cinemas® Sebastopol, followed by a discussion with director with director Dana Nachman and cinematographer Mike Abela and a casual gathering at Fern Bar. Each year, hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa arrive at Post Offices around the country. Through Operation Santa, USPS makes it possible for the public to safely adopt these letters and make children’s dreams come true. Dear Santa is a heart-warming look at one holiday season in the life of this unique program.
SYNOPSIS
Dear Santa shines a light on the 100 year-old Operation Santa program run by the United States Postal Service. Each year, hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa arrive at Post Offices around the country. Through Operation Santa, the USPS makes it possible for the public to safely adopt these letters and make children’s dreams come true. The film invites audiences along for the magic of this massive endeavor. Traveling the country, much like Santa does on Christmas Eve, the film focuses on select Operation Santa Centers: some in metropolitan areas like the massive operation in New York City and others in small towns where the Post Office is the heart of the community. The film highlights letters where a child is asking for something poignant, something that goes beyond the common wish for a toy. Santa will explain how he enlists kindhearted strangers across the country for these special requests while he concentrates on toy making, and his demanding delivery schedule. This timeless documentary captures the warmth and spirit of Christmastime through the lens of this great American tradition, provoking audiences throughout the world to ask themselves how they can make the world a better place, one gesture at a time. DETAILS
The Doc Night screening of Dear Santa and a post-screening discussion with director Dana Nachman and cinematographer Mike Abela will take place at Rialto Cinemas® on December 12 at 7 p.m., followed by casual drinks and snacks at Fern Bar. Doc Night films are also available to stream during the screening.
Doc Night is a co-presentation of Trim Tab, Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, and Rialto Cinemas®.
DOC NIGHT – A DOCUMENTARY SCREENING & DISCUSSION SERIES
AN SDFF, TRIM TAB MEDIA + RIALTO CINEMAS® COLLABORATION
Doc Nights is a collaborative effort to bring together the North Bay filmmaking community (in person or virtually) for a monthly screening series featuring award-winning documentaries about the environment, social justice, adventure, art and music.
Each screening features an independent documentary, a post-screening discussion with the filmmaker at the Rialto Cinemas® in downtown Sebastopol. Virtual attendees will be able to livestream the screening and participate in the discussion.
After each event, attendees are invited to gather at Fern Bar for filmmaker drinks, discussion and networking.
New Fall Doc Night Series Continues Oct. 10 with #KidsOnTech Screening + Filmmaker Discussion
#KidsOnTech looks at the relationship between children and technology in the wake of the pandemic, examining the impact technology has had on children’s developing minds and bodies, and asking how best to move forward and prepare children for life in a digital world. The film includes intimate conversations with parents, teachers, neuroscientists, tech executives, child psychologists, and kids of every age from around the world.
SYNOPSIS
The pandemic and resulting two years of lockdown in the U.S. meant dependence reliance on technology across the population, but forced children, in particular, to rely on technology more than ever. #KidsOnTechexamines the impact of screen and screen culture on children’s developing bodies and brains, and investigates how to better prepare children for the digital world. The doc travels from India to the U.S., France to China, and Mexico to Japan to explore what children need in order to truly excel in a tech-dominated future. As a part of their investigation, the filmmakers talk a Google designer, a German brain scientist, and New York Timesjournalist, Matt Richtel, whose story on a Silicon Valley school created an international media frenzy. Is tech somehow inherently evil? Should we shield our children from tech at all costs? Certainly not, nor could we if we tried. #KidsOnTech‘s approach is one of empathic concern for everyone caught up in tech’s advance and offers a reminder of basic child development to show how children’s growth and maturity can be fostered so that they might thrive, not only in tech environments, but in the world itself.
Most parents were relieved to have Zoom classrooms, but children around the world are now emerging more obsessed than before with tech devices. According to #KidsOnTech, there is growing consensus in scientific circles that heavy use of screen-based technology can profoundly compromise healthy brain development in young children. And yet, in the world today, it is nearly impossible for parents and children not to depend on these devices in multiple ways.
What to do? Given the absence of simple answers, #KidsOnTech seeks to step beyond the hyperbolic media coverage spelling doom and gloom for kids to understand what these polarizing debate obscure through intimate conversations with parents, teachers, neuroscientists, tech executives, child psychologists, and kids of every age from around the world about technology. This film’s objective is to help start these important conversations with parents and teachers, to remind them of the importance of outdoor play, physical engagement with others, abd even boredom. The film explores strategies for protecting and preparing children for a rapidly changing world. Even so, the jury is still out whether tech is helping our children grow into healthier, more creative and technically proficient adults; or, paradoxically, hindering the very capacities they’ll need to navigate an evermore technologically demanding future.
DETAILS The Doc Night screening of #KidsOnTech and a post-screening discussion director Paul Zehr and editor Eric Ivey will take place at Rialto Cinemas® on October 10 at 7 p.m., followed by casual drinks and snacks at Fern Bar.
Season 2 – Fall 2022 Program
SEPT 12
Feature Program
Belly of the Beast
When an unlikely duo discovers a pattern of illegal sterilizations in women’s prisons, they wage a near impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. Filmed over seven years in California prisons.
with director Erika Cohn
OCT 10
Feature Program
Kids On Tech
Parents and teachers around the world struggle with their kids’ dependence on devices today. #KidsOnTech looks at the impact on children’s developing bodies and brains, and asks: “How might we better prepare our kids for this digital world?
with director Paul Zehr & editor Eric Ivey
NOV 14
Feature Program
Not Without Us
An all too timely document of the grassroots struggle for significant climate action. In the months leading up to COP21 in Paris, Not Without Us chronicles activists from around the world as they make their voices heard.
with Kontent Films director Mark Decena
DEC 12
Feature Program
Dear Santa
Each year, hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa arrive at Post Offices around the country. Through Operation Santa, the United States Postal Service makes it possible for the public to safely adopt these letters and make children’s dreams come true.
with director Dana Nachman and cinematographer Mike Abela
Season 1 – Spring 2022 Program – Archive
MARCH 14
Work-In-Progress Screening
Finding Forests
with Coriolis Films & Coldwater Collective filmmakers Johanna van de Woestijne, Sashwa Burrous, Justin Lewis, & editor Michelle Olivera
with TrimTab Media co-directors Mischa Hedges, Sonia Luokkala & Jacqueline Cleveland
APRIL 11
Feature Program
The Dawn Wall
Blurring the line between dedication and obsession, Tommy Caldwall and Kevin Jorgeson spend six years meticulously plotting and practicing their route to scale the Dawn Wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
with climber Kevin Jorgeson
MAY 9
Feature Program
Symphony of the Soil
Filmed on four continents, Symphony of the Soil is an intriguing presentation that highlights possibilities of healthy soil creating healthy plants creating healthy humans on a healthy planet.
w/ producer Deborah Koons Garcia & editor Vivien Hillgrove
JUNE 6
Feature Program
Reflection: A Walk With Water
Filmmaker Emmett Brennan examines the status quo of Earth’s most precious resource, water, and offers a vision for how to radically redesign our lives around it.
w/ director Emmett Brennan