Director of Film to be Presented at the Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival (DREFF) Wins Top Humanitarian Award

Santo Domingo, 8/27/2011

One of the invited international guests to the Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival (DREFF), an initiative of GFDD and FUNGLODE, has won a special humanitarian award in Canada for his climate change films and work with the United Nations. The Gemini Awards, Canada’s equivalent of the American Emmy Awards, are presented to exceptional members of the television and digital media industries for their excellence

Scientist and Director, Mark Terry has produced over 20 TV series and documentaries, most impressively, The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning (2009) and The Polar Explorer (2011) – the latter of which will be screened as part of the Festival.

Both films were the only ones invited by the United Nations Environment Program to screen at The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen and Cancun and are considered among the most influential documentaries in the history of environmental policy.

DREFF is honored to host Mark Terry, who is one of the 22 international guests represented at the Festival and his film, Polar Explorer will be showing at the UASD at the Pedro Mir Library auditorium on Friday, September 9, 2011 at 6 pm. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on the controversy about scientific evidence for climate change facts and explores the scientific process of how that feeds in to policy decisions.  He will also discuss how measurements are taken, how experts assess the major signs of climate change in the region, its physical impacts (such as environmental damage and a rise in diseases), as well as calculating current levels of greenhouse gas emissions and possibilities for mitigation.

DREFF I, which takes place September 8-11, 2011, will provide youth and general audiences the opportunity to watch dozen of the world’s best and most beautiful, informative and educational environmental films of the year, and learn about pressing issues the world’s ecology is facing.  Some of the themes the selected films will address to its audiences concern pollution, climate change, biodiversity, forests and food security, globalization and consumption, and ocean conservation.