ecorazzi.com :: the latest in green gossip

May 1st 2008

Go Green Expo Conquers The Big Apple With Eco-tastic Weekend

Filed under: ecorazzi exclusive, events: nyc, fashion, honors — melissa @ 4:48 pm

The New York City-based Go Green Expo had its Big Apple debut this past weekend at the Hilton New York. The green weekend kicked off with an inaugural awards gala which included a runway fashion show featuring eco-wear by Maggie Norris, a former designer for Ralph Lauren. Host Nigel Barker of America ’s Next Top Model auctioned several couture pieces – topping at $7,000 - benefiting Riverkeeper’s Amazon Conservation Association. Award recipients included Congressman Steve Israel, Captain Planet Foundation’s Laura Turner Seydel, Live Earth Founder Kevin Wall and NYT best-selling author David Bach for their individual contributions to the green movement this year. Celebs in attendance included the always-stunning actress Sissy Spacek, model Lauren Bush, Playboy model Lindsey Vuolo and TV personality Pat Mitchell.

The weekend continued with a three-floor, green-living and sustainability event including vendor booths, panels and film screenings. Goodies ranged from bamboo-clothing by Carole Wang to green printers, ride-share companies, bags, jewelry, cosmetics, to organic foods and beverages like Sobe. Many of the products featured boasted free-trade production.

One of the most notable extra-curriculars was the Fields of Fuel, film screening chronicling Josh Tickell’s U.S. road-trip in a “Veggie-Van” fueled by vegetable oil from fast-food eateries. He also breaks down green energy and major myths and misconceptions. Who knew (aside from Josh) that Rudolf Diesel, who created the first diesel engine, had designed it to run on vegetable oil, not petroleum?! To call this film eye-opening would be a great understatement. Despite its current grass-roots marketing effort I would confidently put all bets on this powerful, film as a shoe-in for the next Best Documentary Oscar. “Fields of Fuel” already won the Audience Choice Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The inspirational Josh Tickell took park in Q&A with expo-goers and has been working on this film for almost 10 years and has loved inspiring others. Check out a clip of the movie here or visit the official site at http://www.fieldsoffuel.com/.

For pictures from the fashion show and the gala, please click more below to view Ecorazzi’s gallery!

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April 9th 2008

The Green Picture: Ron Livingston Helps Honor Fields Of Fuel Doc

Filed under: honors — michael @ 4:14 pm

January 20th 2008

A Smattering Of Green Films Premiering At 2008 Sundance

Filed under: festivals, film-tv, movies — michael @ 12:33 pm

It was only two years ago that Al Gore premiered a little-known film called An Inconvenient Truth at Sundance 2006. Since then, the festival has experienced an increase in eco-themed documentaries and movies; not to mention environmental awareness in handling everything from programs to merchandise to transportation.

This year’s entries include such topics as America’s dependency on fossil fuels to the precarious future of water resources to, well, the end of the world.

First up is Field of Fuels — a film about U.S. dependency on fossil fuels and the potential of biodiesel to replace gasoline. Proving their point, the cast and crew traveled from Venice, CA to Sundance in a biodiesel caravan. Director Josh Tickell’s film was even selected to open up the festival at Robert Redford’s preserve this past Wednesday. He’s hopeful for a 200-1000 screen release in theaters during the election campaign in ‘08. You can check out their ‘Sundance Blog’ over on the official Fuels site. (Thanks to Earth Pledge, the film is also carbon-neutral. Interestingly enough, Oscar-Best-Picture runner There Will Be Blood also voluntarily offset their production through EP.)

Next up is FLOW: For Love of Water which documents the intense relationship between people and water, and examines the growing rate of depletion of the most precious of natural resources. From the official site,

“Armed with a thirst for survival, people around the world are fighting for their birthright; unless we instigate change, we face a world in which only those that can pay for their water will survive. FLOW: For Love of Water, is a catalyst for people everywhere: the time has come to turn the tide and we can’t wait any longer.”

On the fictional front, we have Half-Life. While some might be quick to think this is a movie version of the video game, it’s vastly different. Here’s the quick summary: “Set in the idyllic hills of northern California, Jennifer Phang’s marvelously original first feature, Half-Life, is a supernormal tale about self-absorbed and disillusioned suburbanites who live in a futuristic time of natural disasters, suffocating air quality, and accelerating global cataclysms.”

Sounds deep — but Sundance isn’t about thin films with little-to-no brain activity. Should be cool to see how these all fair against the traditional indies — but at the end of the day, we’re just happy to see more attention being paid to these topics. Look for most of these to be available to the public sometime this year.