Blessings of Liberty

2022 • United States • 27 min • Joe VanderMeulen

Has Subtitles, Family Friendly

Restoring Aquatic Ecosystems shines a light on Michigan’s first indigenous-led, multi-agency collaborative created to restore and protect the ecology of streams and rivers across an entire region. Led by the Grand Traverse Band (GTB) of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, the Tribal Stream and Michigan Fruitbelt Collaborative includes over a dozen nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies working together to remove blockages to the natural flow of water in Michigan’s streams and rivers – often called ”the arteries of mother earth.”

2019 • USA • 29 min • Jennifer A. Berggren

“A Change of Practice: Leadership in Medicine for the Underserved” is a half-hour documentary film that follows third- and fourth-year LMU students as they help residents in Flint navigate the lead water crisis and the insidious impacts of poverty. LMU students learn they are called to be more than physicians; their role is to change the practice of medicine. As one of the LMU students says in the film if they don’t advocate for patients, who will?

2020 • USA • 27 min • Alice Lyn

Filmmaker in Attendance, Subject in Attendance

Alice Lyn (she/her) is a sustainability professional and outdoor enthusiast. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Alice relocated to Michigan where she attended college at Northern Michigan University in the Upper Peninsula before putting down roots in Grand Rapids. Today, Alice is the creator and host of “Color Out Here” a narrative platform and community organizing initiative designed in collaboration with WGVU and PBS that explores the barriers to inclusion faced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in outdoor recreation and environmental stewardship.