The Greening of Southie Comes Home to Boston—
Feature Screening at the Historic Coolidge Corner Theater July 20, 2009
The award-winning documentary The Greening of Southie, now in national theatrical release, comes home to Boston at the historic Coolidge Corner Theatre on Monday, July 20, at 7 p.m., after opening in New York on July 5.
The Boston Building Materials Co-op is partnering with The Green Roundtable to promote the film. After the screening, Green Roundtable Executive Director Barbara Batshalom will lead a post-film discussion with the filmmakers, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis of the Peabody-winning King Corn.
The Greening of Southie documents the construction of Boston’s first residential green building, the Macallen Building. Macallen is LEED Gold certified, was named one of the American Institute of Architects’ Top 10 Green Projects of 2008, and has become a case study for architects and builders around the world. The Greening of Southie tells the story of the men and women behind the building––the developer (Tim Pappas) and architects (Monica Ponce de Leon and Nadir Tehrani of Office dA), as well as the men and women who pour the locally sourced concrete, weld the recycled steel beams and lay the rapidly renewable bamboo flooring.
The Greening of Southie highlights its Boston roots (all the film’s main characters are local), but its reputation and distribution have reached around the world. The film has been profiled on Good Morning America, in The New Yorker magazine and Dwell, and on public radio’s Bob Edwards Show and Air America’s Ron Reagan Show. The documentary is airing on The Sundance Channel in the US and has secured distribution in the UK, France, Poland, and Canada. Other Massachusetts theatrical dates include Amherst (August 2), Great Barrington (August 3) and Northampton (August 4).
This April, The Greening of Southie was the centerpiece of Earth Week in the Union Halls, a campaign that brought the film to 60 building trade union halls with the goal of fostering discussion about green jobs and green building. Last month, Rep. Frank Smizik hosted a screening of the film for the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Rep. Smizik said, “The Greening of Southie is funny, charming, and informative. Green building is an important part of our future in Massachusetts—I hope residents across the state will see the film.”
The filmmakers are available for interviews, as are members of the construction and development community who appear in the film. To see a five-minute trailer, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W2UP2GfGp8.
The Boston Building Materials Co-op (www.bbmc.com) is a consumer co-op that sells green building products such as those featured in the film (green cabinetry and countertops, dual-flush toilets) as well as others (landscape timbers made of recycled plastic, rain barrels, insulation, and weather stripping). The Co-op is giving away five pairs of tickets to the film to customers through a prize drawing. Other organizations partnering to promote the screening include the Mass Energy Consumer’s Alliance, Community Labor United, Boston Youth Environmental Network, YouthBuild Boston, Green Thinks and Kavod House.
The Green Roundtable is a nonprofit that aims to mainstream green building through education, policy and technical assistance. Its NEXUS Resource Center in downtown Boston provides free resources, events and information on green building and sustainable design to the general public and the building industry.
Deb Beatty Mel
Boston Building Materials Co-op
Building Materials Resource Center
617.442.2262 ext. 235
