Elwha Premiere Invitation

Eagle Harbor High School Documentary Class

BITV Instructor - Cory Kelley

EHHS Teacher - Marie Marrs

BIAECC - Bonnie Showers

"Shifting Currents," a student-produced documentary of Eagle Harbor High School students' involvement with the Elwha River project, will premier Monday, June 18, at Lynwood Center on Bainbridge Island.

The film mentored through Bainbridge Island Television's Film and Television Education Program highlights the journey of the river as well as the students' involvement, including their reflections about the need to "fix" environmental issues inherited from earlier generations.

The project to remove two dams on the Olympic Peninsula's Elwha River is the largest such project ever undertaken.

EHHS Students have been involved with this project since September 2005 and plans are for students to remain involved until well after the dams are removed. Working on this project, students have learned how to determine the health of the river through scientific testing and to understand what elements need to be present for the salmon to return.

A unique aspect of this project was BITV's role in using this
curriculum to engage the students in learning the art and science of documentary filmmaking to create a film to share with the entire community. Over the course of 16 weeks, BITV instructors mentored the students in script development, project management, interview techniques, cinematography and editing.

They have also experienced the impact this project will have not only on the environment but on the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe as well. Simply put, *Shifting Currents* represents not only the shifts in the river as the dams are removed but also a shift in a generational attitude toward environmental issues. This generation is stating that they will take on the environmental issues created by previous generations. EHHS
students say the Elwha River Reclamation Project is just one of many worldwide projects that has garnered the attention of this *green* generation.

In the words of Eagle Harbor High School sophomore, Julie Tamanini, *By the time the dams are removed, all of us currently involved in the Elwha project will have graduated from Eagle Harbor High School. In the next few decades after the dam removal, the salmon will struggle to return to the Elwha, and it will be up to a new generation of students
to inherit the restoration project and help heal the River. We don*t know if the salmon will ever make a full comeback. We don*t know what the effects will be if and when they do. We don*t know what the reverberations of the project will be. But we do know is that we have changed because of our involvement.*

"Shifting Currents" is being paired with the widely heralded
documentary "Gimme Green," a humorous look at the $40 Billion industry that fuels our Nation's largest irrigated crop--the lawn. Tickets, $10.00 apiece, for the 7:30 showing at the Historic Lynwood Theatre on Bainbridge Island, are available as pre-sales and at the door. Proceeds will fund the Eagle Harbor High School 2007/08 Elwha Project involvement
and the BITV student scholarship fund. Invitation

The documentary was made possible through partnerships with BITV's Film and Television Education Program,
Bainbridge Schools Foundation, Coalition of Essential Schools, Olympic Park Institute, Eagle Harbor PTO, and Bainbridge Island Arts Education Community Consortium, administered by BI Arts and Humanities Council, with funding from the Harvest Foundation.

For more information contact BITV at 206.780.2980

Film Premiere Sponsored by:

Lynwood Theater

Special contribution by:
Roby-King Gallery