Green Planet Films

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mister Kepple, how are you, my man?

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm doing great and.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Green Planet Films. Where's the Is that Connecticut based or no?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, based in Stonington, Connecticut.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
That's awesome. How long have you guys been doing your thing?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Twenty one years?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Wow? I keep trying to tell my kid, my kids
who are both studying film in school, my freshman and
my senior, and I try to tell them, biggu is
they mock Connecticut. I'm like, you know, Connecticut's action packed
on the filmmaking front. You know, it really is.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
You know, it's nice because there's room to do stuff
and get someone to get to notice, you know, as
opposed to LA or New York. Not that those aren't
great places to pursue film too, but and then to
further isolate ourselves, you know, being an educationally driven nonprofit
distributor very documentary films. I think we're one of a

(00:54):
kind in Connecticut.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Absolutely, And you've got something great coming up as far
as and I'm going to make sure I get this
right too, because it's a whole month, basically November, dedicated
to this Green Planet film series. There's Atomic Hope is
the first one coming up. Those people to say I
want to touch upon each film too, Art and Pep

(01:15):
and then finally Jaguar People. Now, I know they're screening
at the Westbrook Cinemas, but anywhere else elsewhere in Connecticut, you.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Know, these some of these titles are available on library
shelves or to be streamed using your library card using
a service called Canopy, which you stream documentaries for free
through your library membership. So Art and Pep and Atomic

(01:47):
Hope are both on Canopy if anyone's gonna get the
chance to go. But this Westbrook series is really something
unique because you know, it's a commercial theater, but Bill
Doherty and the other great folks who run and manage
the cinema have decided to kind of open up a
screen for documentary film for the month of November.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
The documentaries are hot right now, to Chris, I mean
documentaries are really hot right now.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I think that's right. Well, I'm glad to hear you
say that, and I certainly feel the same way. And
I think we've got some Each of these films, you know,
touches on a really important topic. You know. Atomic Hope
goes right to the heart of the energy and climate
conversation and inquires about what is the role of atomic

(02:38):
energy and getting carbon free? You know, and I think
that that's a that is a question that a lot
of people are trying to answer, and we're seeing the
countries that are being more successful and reducing their carbon
emissions in Europe are are using atomic energy as a
major component of their energy programs.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
That I was just going to say, like that one,
it was interesting to see, you know, you look at
the titles, books and covers and all that atomic hope
kind of conveying. It was those people that I immediately
clicked on. I'm like, wow, we could this could mean
a million different things. And then it's even more intriguing
to kind of plumb the depths of the title. It's

(03:18):
how a talent show turned pain into healing and it
involved one of my favorite venues here in Connecticut, the
guard Arts Center. As far as yeah, why don't you
tell people about this one? I find very interesting.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, we're so proud to have this film Those People,
which is a really unique collaboration between one of our
community's great assets, which is the New London Day and
great paper. Love that paper, Love that paper in New
England newspaper of the Year, many times over and also
a retired city councilor, and Curtis Goodwin and an activist

(03:56):
all around the board who's done a lot of work
with Connecticut Humanities, worked on the Freedom Trail. But you
see what a collaboration between somebody who's really invested in
their own work when they're paired with the resources and
the talents of the New London Day and Peter Wapi,
who's the videographer for the New London Day does all

(04:18):
their video work, who got his first directorial credit with
this feature documentary credit as a director, with those people,
and it's just it's such an inspiring story to see
how these two entities and these people came together to
really celebrate a talent show that was both a needed

(04:39):
saying and something that added a lot of beauty to
the arts seen in New London at the time that
it was created, and it continued for a few years.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
And nearest I could tell from the website for Green
Planet Films too, it looks as if were schools interested
in screening this film, So like that that's one way
you guys kind of work and get your films out there.
That's something a service for lack of a better way
of putting it. But I thought that was interesting too.
Tell us about that.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, we want to meet audiences out there in educational spaces,
in schools, in libraries, at universities, and sometimes in theaters.
So we have been working with some libraries locally in
southeastern Connecticut to present those people and bring either Peter
or Curtis along talk about the process of making the

(05:32):
film and the meetings of the film and that is really,
you know, at the heart of what we do at
Green Planet Films, just too to start these conversations with
films on important topics and listen and hear what audiences
have to say and hopefully make an impact.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Have schools taken you up on this yet? And again
wrong with Chris Keppel, he's the chief operating officer for
Green Planet Films. I would encourage you to actually just
go to green Planet Films dot org. There's quite a
catalog up there. Have schools taken you up on this yet?
Or community centers, the local libraries, what have you?

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, certainly local libraries have been you know, as they
often are quick to respond to a film like those people.
So we've been working with New London Public Library. We've
been working with the Waterford Public Library and the Stonington
Free Library to organize curated screening events with either the

(06:32):
director or the producer appearing to accompany the film for
their audiences, you know, for their patrons. As far as schools,
we've worked with the Town on line in their summer
Live Arts program, but doing some more with We also
offer a documentary filmmaking workshops for kids and adults. So
it's sort of jumped along an experiment, yeah, an experiment

(06:54):
with making a documentary film on your own. This year
we did that for the first time with seniors at
Stone Ridge Retirement Home and that was such a neat,
such a neat experiment and taking this program that we
had developed really for kids and turning it into an
opportunity for seniors to make short documentaries, sort of memoir

(07:17):
style documentaries about their own lives. So's we're constantly doing
outreach locally and nationally to bring the films out there
and to create new opportunities for people young and old
to explore documentary film.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
I got to connect with her out of my two kids,
my daughter is the senior. She just did a semester
to a semester abroad. She just returned from a really
fantastic semester abroad. Her interest is in scoring films, which
is just so interesting that the slots that they fall into.

(07:53):
I'm a movie guy myself, as you probably know. That's
how we got connected. In addition to the radio show,
I do a movie segment for the ABC affiliate here
in town. But my son's the documentary guy. I'd love
to connect him with you guys. He loves documentary. He
watches every documentary there is. He's got a few in

(08:14):
the can that he's trying to make himself. He's eighteen
years old. It's it's kind of it's been an interesting
thing to see how much he loves to dantastic. Yeah,
he loves that format. So I'm not I'm for one,
maybe some people would be. I for one, I am
not surprised to hear you say. Yeah, we do this
little program and people have really taken to it because
the not only what I'm seeing on the home front,

(08:37):
I'm seeing just myself that documentaries are having their day.
They've had it before. You know, we kind of we
always circle back to from Hoop Dreams, you know, we
always kind of circle back to the doc.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
We have to We have to because they're always revealing
new information and it's you know, I've been watching the
new Pete Rose document entry. I heard about it on Netflix. Yeah,
but you know, for a new filmmaker, documentary is a
great place to start. A lot of the barriers to
making narrative films just aren't there, you know. So if

(09:13):
you're working by yourself or in a small team, you can
you can really achieve some stuff in the in documentary
world where you might not be able to make that
first Fi fi film so easily. Yeah, first great American
road trip film an we're dreaming of it. Yeah, so
I think it's a documentary. It is a great place

(09:34):
to start and maybe to stay if you find yourself
at home in that genre.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah. So I want to make sure I'll keep reminding people.
It's Westbrook Cinema November. The entire month, there will be
four film screen It's Green Planet Month at Westbrook in
November and Sunday, Yeah, the tenth kicks off with a
toomic hope. Yeah, I'll make sure I remind people and
make podcasts out of all this. And let's and Chris,

(09:59):
let's stay touchdown the road, Jenny, I.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Really appreciate you. Thank you for the notice and the
attention the time today.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Thank you