Global Environmental Speaker Series: "Observer" Film Screening

Film Screening & Q&A

Join the Global Environmental Speaker Series for a film screening of Observer and a Q&A with filmmaker Ian Cheney.

In Observer, filmmaker Ian Cheney embarks on an experiment in which he brings a series of keen-eyed observers – scientists, artists, a hunter – to a range of locations around the world, often without telling them where they are going, and asks them simply to describe what they see.

What unfolds is a deep exploration and celebration of the power of observation: what happens when you find new ways to sense and perceive the world around you? With customary whimsy and a small painted red square that Cheney brings on every journey, the film is an invitation to viewers to find beauty and meaning in even the most quotidian of locales.

Ian Cheney is an Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker. He has completed ten feature documentaries, including King Corn (2007), The Greening of Southie (2008), The City Dark (2011), The Search for General Tso (2014), Bluespace (2015), The Most Unknown (2018), The Emoji Story (2019), Thirteen Ways (2019), Picture a Scientist (2020) and The Long Coast (2020).

His short films include Two Buckets (2006), Truck Farm (2010), The Melungeons (2013), The Smog of the Sea (2016) and The Measure of a Fog (2017).

He received bachelor’s & master’s degrees from Yale University, and an M.F.A. in Film from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

A former MacDowell Fellow & Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, he lives in midcoast Maine.

Each year the Department of Geography, Environment, & Sustainability, the Environmental Studies Program, and Global Studies Program partner to bring noteworthy speakers and scholars to Richmond to present lectures related to our global environment. This event is co-sponsored with the will+GSS Speaker Series.

All events are free and open to the public.