The White House Effect

Bonni Cohen / Pedro Kos / Jon Shenk, USA, 2024, 97 mins

Three decades ago, the world was poised to stop global warming. Using exclusively archival material, The White House Effect tells the dramatic origin story of the climate crisis and how a political battle in the George H.W. Bush administration changed the course of history. Woven entirely of archival material, the documentary focuses on the pivotal years of the George H.W. Bush administration—1988 to 1992—when the entire country was waking up to the reality of global warming and Bush had pledged to use “the White House effect” to tackle it.

Time: 6:00pm

Little, Big, and Far

Jem Cohen, USA / Austria, 2024, 121 mins

Karl, an Austrian astronomer, is at a crossroads in life and work. Along with a colleague, Sarah, he finds himself struggling with environmental crises reshaping their fields. Sarah, who specializes in “citizen-science,” has begun seeing Mateo, a young Ecuadorian astronomer who brings her to an old telescope in New Jersey, the site of an astonishing discovery about the origin of the universe. Karl revisits the Rosetta Mission, which landed a probe on a very distant comet. His wife, Eleanor, reflects on her attempt to witness a total eclipse in the American South and its unexpected political implications. The historical touchstones of astronomy, his grandson’s future, and his own role as a dark sky advocate begin to spin above Karl’s head.

Time: 8:30pm