Ithaca College

"Gasland" took a Documentary Special Jury Award at Sundance this year, and it's taken the country by storm during an HBO run and now in a limited release from coast to coast. 

Now it's coming to Ithaca College, along with filmmaker Josh Fox. Introduced by Fox, the film will be screened at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 2 (Election Day), in Emerson Suites, Campus Center.

Following the film, Fox and two of the Pennsylvania residents featured in "Gasland", Craig and Julie Sautner, will engage in a Q&A session with the audience.

After being offered serious cash by a gas drilling company to lease his Pennsylvania land on the banks of the Delaware, Fox decided to learn more about the new Halliburton-developed process being used to extract methane ("natural") gas from the shale formations in his home state, a process called slickwater high-volume horizontal fracturing, or "fracking."

Fox embarked on a cross-country trip to visit people living with the effects of fracking. In the documentary that ensued—part-vérité travelogue, part-exposé, part-mystery, part-showdown—Fox encounters EPA whistleblowers, congressmen, world-recognized scientists, and many ordinary Americans fighting against fossil-fuel giants to protect their water, environment, homes, and communities. 

Like Pennsylvania, large swaths of New York State — including Ithaca and the Finger Lakes region — are on the gas-rich Marcellus Shale. Drilling may soon begin in our state. 

"Gasland" has won many awards, and in Iceland on October 9, the 70th anniversary of John Lennon's birth, Fox was honored with the John Lennon/Yoko Ono Grant for Peace. Fox is the founding artistic director of International WOW Company, an innovative global theater organization, and has won many awards for that work as well. 

The event, which is free and open to the public, is being sponsored by the Park Center for Independent Media with support from the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Roy H. Park School of Communications, Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies, Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences, and Department of Theatre Arts. 

For more information, contact Brandy Hawley in the Park Center for Independent Media, 607-274-3590; bhawley@ithaca.edu. 

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Maura Stephens at 607-274-3829 or mstephens@ithaca.edu. Please make requests for accommodations as far in advance as possible.