“Reflecting the Stars” seeks to give the night sky back to the people (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Pier 49, Hudson River Park at Bank St.
Climate Week runs September 19-26
Through October 25, free
www.thewindmillfactory.com
www.climateweeknyc2011.org
Born and raised in Kentucky, Jon Morris couldn’t help but notice something as he moved to Los Angeles and then here to New York City: the disappearance of so many stars and constellations in big-city skies as a result of light pollution and other environmental problems. So he resolved to do something about it. He and his artists collective, the Windmill Factory (so named with more than a subtle nod to Don Quixote), which specializes in “manufacturing the sublime,” has installed “Reflecting the Stars” on the old pilings jutting out into the river from Pier 49 in Hudson River Park. Divers have attached radio-controlled, solar-powered LED lights encased in rusting steel pipe caps on more than two hundred of the wooden posts, and each evening, from sunset to midnight, blue and white lights go on and off in various patterns. In addition, visitors can push buttons on a board to see nine constellations that can are longer visible with the naked eye in the city sky, including Perseus, Hercules, Canis Major, Andromeda, Aquila, Boötes, Pegasus, the Little Dipper, and Draco. Engineered by Adam Berenzweig, designed by Rich Schwab, and manufactured by Andy Baker at Kontraptioneering, “Reflecting the Stars” is more than just a cool site — and one, by the way, that is that much cooler if you can gain access to one of the surrounding roof decks to look down on it. It also sends an important environmental message, a plea for people to take back nature and the skies from industrial pollution, particularly the lights left on all night in office buildings and the neon logos that blast across the city all night long. “It raises questions about the way we live,” Morris said at the project’s public unveiling on August 31. With a Buddhist’s calm, Morris stressed how people need to regain their “connection to the stars, to the moon, to the universe.”
“Reflecting the Stars,” which continues through October 25, is one of the highlights of Climate Week, as the Clean Revolution descends on New York September 19-26. Among the many lectures, panel discussions, installations, cocktail receptions, and other educational and informational gatherings are “The Lexicon of Sustainability Project,” “Innovations in Energy Efficiency Finance,” “Apartment Building Recycling Training,” “Plug-In Cities: What EV Means for the Future of Urban and Regional Transportation,” “Feeding Hope: Living Democracy with Vandana Shiva & Frances Moore Lappé,” “Dr. James Hansen: Climate Change or Just Mother Nature Acting Out,” and the grand finale, “Meditations on a Warming Planet: An Audience Participation Performance” on September 26 at 6:00 on the Sheep Meadow in Central Park.
The first half of Lorenz Knauer’s documentary about Jane Goodall, Jane’s Journey, offers fascinating insight into the life and career of the famed primatologist. Making sure she’s not mistaken for the late Dian Fossey, Goodall shares intimate details about her personal and professional lives, discussing her two marriages and her conflict with her son while also delving into her early days working with chimpanzees and archaeologist Louis Leakey in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Wanting to study animals in Africa since she was a little girl, Goodall achieved her dreams in her early twenties, as she came upon major discoveries that changed the way the scientific world looked at both chimpanzees and humans. Goodall, now in her seventies, returns to Tanzania, sitting with the chimpanzees, showing how they welcomed her those many years ago and still do today. In 1986, Goodall made an abrupt shift in her career, giving up primatology in favor of traveling around the world in a desperate effort to save the planet; the documentary makes an abrupt shift as well, going from a charming study of this highly influential woman to a worshipful fundraising campaign for her many charitable efforts, which include Roots & Shoots and the Jane Goodall Institute. It is here that the film loses its edge; whereas before Knauer spoke with people who knew Goodall well, including her son, her sister, her biographer, and a longtime coworker, now he adds interviews with superstar celebrities (Pierce Brosnan and Angelina Jolie) and random fans lining up for autographs. It’s not that what Goodall has been doing for the last quarter-century isn’t as important as what she did previously; it’s just that it’s not very interesting as presented, playing more like an infomercial than a documentary. Goodall will be at the IFC Center for the 7:20 and 9:50 screenings on opening night, September 16; on September 27 at 8:00 ($18), the one-night-only event 
The opening-night selection of the 2011 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Granito: How to Nail a Dictator is an illuminating, if at times overly self-referential, examination of the power of documentary filmmaking. In 1982, Pamela Yates and Newton Thomas Sigel made When the Mountains Tremble, which told the inside story of civilian massacres of the indigenous Maya people as government forces and guerrilla revolutionaries fought in the jungles of Guatemala; one of the film’s subjects, Rigoberta Menchú, became an international figure and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. “When I made that film, I had no idea I was filming in the middle of a genocide,” Yates says at the beginning of Granito. A quarter-century after When the Mountains Tremble, Yates was contacted by lawyer Almudena Bernabeu, who asked Yates to comb through her reels and reels of footage to find evidence of the Guatemalan genocide and help bring charges again dictator Ríos Montt, whom Yates had met with back in 1982. In researching the case, Yates speaks with Menchú, forensic archivist Kate Doyle, journalist liaison Naomi Roht-Arriaza, forensic anthropologist Fredy Peccerelli, Spanish national court judge Santiago Pedraz, victims’ rights leader and genocide survivor Antonio Caba Caba, and Gustavo Meoño, a founding member of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor, each of whom sheds light on the proceedings from various different angles, from digging up bones in mass graves to discussing redacted documents that reveal U.S. involvement in Guatemala. Several of them are risking their lives by both continuing to fight the government and appearing on camera. Granito, which Yates directed with Peter Kinoy and Paco de Onís and was her sixth film to be shown at the Human Rights Watch festival, is a compelling look at how individuals can make a difference. The music is often overly melodramatic, and Yates does seem to like to show herself both in outtakes from her first film and in serious poses in the new film, but its ultimate point overrides those tendencies. Granito opens September 14 at the IFC Center, with the filmmakers present to talk about their work at the 7:40 showings Wednesday through Sunday as well as the 10:00 show Friday and Saturday night.