Oscar-Nominated Documentary: If A Tree Falls: The Story Of The Earth Liberation Front at Ann Arbor District Library, Downtown (main) Branch

It’s the week of the Oscars (which are televised Sunday, Feb. 26)! Celebrate with this special screening of this award-winning film, one of this year’s nominees Best Documentary. The film is a rare behind-the-curtain look at the Earth Liberation Front, the radical environmental group that the FBI calls America's number one domestic terrorist threat.

Winner of the U.S. Documentary Editing Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front carefully weaves together a variety of clashing points of view using vérité footage, surprisingly candid interviews and a trove of archival material (much of it never before seen). The result is a nuanced film (that is not rated) that asks its audience to wrestle with questions intentionally left unresolved. For years, the Earth Liberation Front (the collective name for individuals u

sing economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment) had launched spectacular acts of arson against dozens of businesses they accused of destroying the environment, including timber companies, SUV dealerships, wild horse slaughterhouses and a $12 million ski lodge in Vail, Colorado. In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by four federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front. Soon after his arrest, McGowan discovered that the arson carried a sentence of life in prison. It is McGowan’s story that is the focus of this powerful documentary.

The film begins with McGowan placed on house arrest as he awaits trial for two arsons that he committed against Oregon timber facilities. With an ankle bracelet monitoring his movement, he contemplates his future and reflects on his past. On the surface, he is an unlikely revolutionary. He went to Catholic school in Queens, was the son of a New York police officer and was a business major in college. "Growing up, he wasn't the political kid fighting for anything," his sister says. "He was just a regular kid."

McGowan feels conflicted about the fires. On one hand, ELF supporters believe that they were following the traditions of the Boston Tea Party: symbolic property destruction designed to draw attention to important issues. But they also recognize the danger and consequences of arson.

A federal judge must decide whether to apply terrorism enhancement to McGowan's arson charges, which could translate into McGowan being assigned to one of the restrictive terrorist prisons in the United States known as communication management units. Do not miss this powerful film!