Meltdown Film Panel Discussion

Live streamed on April 24, 2021.

A conversation between the filmmakers and subjects of the film Meltdown: artist Lynn Davis, scientist Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D., director/producer/writer Fredric Golding, executive producer Mike Tollin, and director of photography Sidney Lubitsch, who is also Craft in America’s director of photography. This timely and ground-breaking documentary directed and produced by Academy Award nominees Golding and Tollin, features the exquisite images of acclaimed photographer Davis and the profound insight of climate scientist Leiserowitz. In the film, Davis and Leiserowitz confront the dramatic effects of global warming from the Arctic town of Illulissat, Greenland. What they witness from this ground-zero location for climate change has life altering implications for the entire planet. This conversation will delve into the convergence of art and science in how we view the world. Panelists will discuss how the film presents themes of survival and loss, discovery and reinvention.

This talk is presented in conjunction with the Craft in America Center exhibition, Making Waves: Ocean Ecology & Craft.

Making Waves: Ocean Ecology and Craft, Craft in America

Meltdown is available for rent and purchase on a variety of platforms including: Amazon or iTunes.

About the Panelists:

Lynn Davis received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1970 and apprenticed with Berenice Abbott in the summer of 1974. She has had over 80 solo shows since 1980 and has work in many collections including at: the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Guggenheim Museum and Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. She has photographed in 48 countries including Egypt, Yemen, Burma, Cambodia, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mali, Iran, Greenland and most recently Greece & Brazil. In 2005 Davis received an Academy Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. She lives and works in Hudson, New York & Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Fredric Golding has worked extensively in the film and television business for the last thirty years. Nominated for an Academy Award and winner of the prestigious Peabody Award, Golding produced the highly acclaimed theatrical documentary film, Hank Aaron: Chasing The Dream. Another theatrical film, The Final Season, was cited for a special award at the Berlin Film Festival. In addition to long form films, Golding has produced, directed and written extensively for television in the non-fiction arena. He followed a high school wrestling team for the long form documentary On The Mat, which won the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival Online Audience Award and subsequently aired on ESPN.

Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D. is the founder and Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale School of the Environment. He is an expert on public climate change and environmental beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior, and the psychological, cultural, and political factors that shape them. He has published more than 200 scientific articles, chapters, and reports. He is a recipient of the Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education, and the Mitofsky Innovator Award from the American Association of Public Opinion Research. He is also the host of Climate Connections, a radio program broadcast each day on more than 650 frequencies nationwide.

Sidney Lubitsch is a Director of Photography whose thirty-year career has taken him throughout the United States and to all corners of the world, from Japan and Europe, to South America, Africa, India and Australia. With extensive experience in documentaries and commercials, he has also worked in broadcast and dramatic programming. He has been the Director of Photography on the award-winning PBS documentary series Craft in America for twenty-one episodes since 2009. He has worked on numerous documentaries such as Capitalism: A Love Story, Legacy, a feature length documentary nominated for an Academy Award, and most recently with Fred Golding on Meltdown.

Mike Tollin has produced and directed more than a dozen feature films, several award-winning documentaries, and hundreds of hours of television. His films include Wild Hogs, Coach Carter, Varsity Blues, along with the Tollin-directed documentary Hank Aaron: Chasing The Dream, which won a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. Tollin was the Executive Producer of the Emmy award-winning The Last Dance, documentary series on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Tollin is a founding board member of Children Now, Common Sense Media, and the Chasing The Dream Foundation. He is also the Founder of PACE (“Philanthropy and Community Engagement”), a group that identifies and devotes resources to kids-based charities.

This project is supported by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, www.culturela.org.

California Arts Council, RGB, Craft in America

Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, Craft in America

Additional support for the Craft in America Center is provided by the California Arts Council, a state agency (learn more at www.arts.ca.gov) and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture (www.lacountyarts.org).

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