A Radical Thread

A screening of the film A Radical Thread, followed by a conversation between filmmaker Jeanne C. Finley and filmmaker Lynne Sachs. The film tells of a back-to-the-land community on California's San Juan Ridge, founded in the late 1960s as an alternative to American consumer culture, which organized against clear-cutting, river damming, and open-pit gold mining. It tells this story through an 83-foot tapestry created over seventeen years by Marsha Stone and a collective of artists and community members, weaving in archival footage of poet Gary Snyder and reflections from Nisenan spokesperson Shelly Covert. Afterward, the two filmmakers discuss collaborative storytelling, art and environmental activism, and collective memory in the face of ecological change.