“Designated Survivor” star Maggie Q is set to introduce the opening night of KCET and Link TV’s Earth Focus Environmental Film Festival, Variety has learned exclusively.
The actress, producer, and environmentalist will give the introduction for the West Coast premiere of the documentary “Love & Bananas: An Elephant Story” on April 20 at Sony Pictures Studios’ Kim Novak Theatre. The film, from filmmaker Ashley Bell, follows a daring 48-hour mission across Thailand to rescue a captive Asian elephant and set her free. A post-screening Q&A will follow with filmmakers Bell, Roddy Tabatabai and John Michael McCarthy, executive producer David Casselman as well as the film’s Sangdeaun Lek Chailert moderated by KCET “Must See Movies” host and Deadline chief film critic Pete Hammond.
Five pairs of tickets will be given away to the opening night screening event via KCET’s Facebook.
Following the opening night event at Sony Pictures Studios, the festival will take place at Laemmle’s Monica Film Center in Santa Monica in partnership with Laemmle’s Theatres on Sat., April 21 from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The festival is open to the public kicking off with an environmental shorts screening from UCLA’s Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS) program followed by four films and closing with a screening of two all-new, back-to-back episodes of KCET and Link TV’s “Earth Focus,” the longest running environmental news magazine on U.S. television. The screening will premiere two episodes from the new season, exploring how environmental changes are forcing all living creatures to adapt in order to survive. The series premieres later this month, created in partnership with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“We are committed to bringing environmental awareness and dialogue on multiple platforms through our ‘Earth Focus’ franchise, and are proud to host the festival as a resource for enlightenment and education,” said Juan Devis, chief creative officer for KCETLink Media Group. “Capitalizing on the success of last year, we’ve been able to curate an incredible lineup that covers a range of issues impacting the environment today. We hope these films can encourage our community here in Southern California to play a part in helping save our planet for tomorrow.”
