Southern Exposure in Troy
Join Alabama Rivers Alliance, Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper, Troy University’s Biological and Environmental Sciences and Choctawhatchee, Pea and Yellow Rivers Watershed Management Authority (CPYRWMA) for the FREE public screening of the Southern Exposure Films! Don’t miss this night of storytelling that will inspire, ignite and unite us all to #DefendRivers across Alabama!
Thursday, May 15
at the Arboretum at Troy University
5 – 6:30 – Mix & Mingle + Tour the Arboretum
6:30 – Films and Q&A + Discussion After
Created in six weeks during the summer, the Southern Exposure films celebrate special people and places in Alabama while exploring complex issues and solutions.
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT THE FILMMAKERSIn The Cost of Forever, we uncover the hidden and costly dangers of ‘forever chemicals’ in our rivers and drinking water sources, following Riverkeepers and water protectors as they strive to protect communities—and themselves—from PFAS contamination.
In Saving Seagrass: Alabama’s Critical Underwater Nursery, we dive underwater to discover a “whole ‘nother living world under there in the seagrass that nobody ever sees”, full of critters and life and we learn what must happen to protect this Submerged Aquatic Vegetation vital to the health of Mobile Bay and the communities and industries that rely on it.
Dams have completely altered the species makeup, flows, and habitat of many of our most important river systems. In Alabama, home to some of the greatest biodiversity in the nation, Claiborne and Miller’s Ferry Locks and Dams have prevented migratory fish, like the sturgeon and Alabama Shad, from accessing their historic runs from the Gulf of Mexico up the Alabama River to their spawning grounds in the Cahaba River since they were built in the 1970s. These barriers have also left endangered and threatened mussels unable to reproduce and in peril of dying out. Mussel Memory explores the significance of reconnecting river systems and protecting Alabama’s freshwater mussels, our natural water filtration system. Join scientists, conservationists, engineers and anglers as they fight to restore fish passage along the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers.
A project of this magnitude would culminate in the most ecologically significant river reconnection project in the history of the United States, right here in Alabama.
In Alabama Roots, we travel across Alabama rediscovering our native plants, meeting passionate plant people along the way who are making changes big and small in hopes of preserving the last vestiges of once vast ecosystems and Alabama’s unprecedented botanical biodiversity.
Philoptary, from our Poet / Film Fellow, Jermaine Thompson, features a captivating poem created this summer. Images from past filmmakers and from Jermaine’s own experience at Ruffner Mountain in Birmingham accompany the words.
The Alabama Poetry Delegation is a partnership between Alabama Poetry Laureate, Ashley M. Jones and the Alabama Writers Forum that is supported by the Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation, the delegation is a leadership and service initiative of Jones’ nonprofit organization, the Magic City Poetry Festival.