DREAMS FROM A PLANET IN PERIL by Lee Roscoe and Janet Murphy Robertson
Screening and Talk Back Discussion with Lee, Janet, and Laura Kelley of Protect Our Cape Cod Aquifer (POCCA)
Brewster Ladies Library, Saturday, April 15, 2:00-4:00 PM
Register at brewsterladieslibrary.org. Free admission.
Please join us for a screening of Dreams from a Planet in Peril, a spellbinding new film about planetary abuse and its underlying causes. The film’s characters, settings, and language change in the four different “dreams” within the film. Earth’s peril comes to life in a variety of engaging ways—as hyperbole, humor, satire, or melodrama and with all the variety, confusion, emotional range, and fragmentation of the dreamworld itself. Created by writer/director Lee Roscoe and filmmaker/producer Janet Murphy Robertson, the film was first released in October 2022 as individual film shorts, one of which premiered at New York’s prestigious Chelsea Film Festival and was a finalist in three categories at the Independent Shorts Festival in LA. Laura Kelley of Protect Our Cape Cod Aquifer (POCCA) will host a post screening discussion of eco-solutions, and the film’s creators will answer questions.
More about the Film
In the first dream—Water Spirits Colloquy—two Greek demigods and a legendary Native American spirit meet to share their torment over the ravaging of Earth’s waters by humans and eventually conspire to exact revenge. They interact amidst spectacular underwater and terrestrial imagery and in scenes of environmental destruction that build to a dramatic ending. In The Cage, an owl watches as three characters argue, with a mixture of stunning insight and staggering myopia, in a fast-paced mini class war that highlights societal conflicts impeding change. In Reprieve, an indigenous man in despair over the demise of his culture and the Earth is saved by the common decency of people he barely knows. The Warning brings the film to its stunning conclusion as the nameless slumbering woman is propelled by her dreams into a cartoon world so outrageously destructive to the planet that she steps into the dream and attempts to stop the madness.
In addition to Roscoe, the cast includes nine other beloved Massachusetts-based actors: Tom Wolfson, Judith Partelow (courtesy of SAG), Rod Owens, Karen McPherson, Constance Wilkinson, Cleo Zani, Geof Newton, Olivia Thompson, and LeVane Harrington.
Dreams from a Planet in Peril is supported in part by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (Towns of Brewster and Dennis).