Doors at 7:00 PM, Screening at 7:30 PM

@ The Mini Microcinema - 1329 Main St.

Directed by Bert Haanstra

Presented by Adam Williams

Filmmaker Bert Haanstra’s gentle tone and painstaking technique garnered him worldwide acclaim and made him one of the great Dutch cultural figures of the 1950's. In contrast to his delightful and famous short documentaries, such as Spiegel van Holland (Mirror of Holland) and Alleman (The Human Dutch), Haanstra’s stint as chief of the Royal Dutch Shell Film Unit—the commercial and educational branch of the multinational oil company—produced six distinctly cold-sober industrial films. In addition to documenting the laborious process of oil prospecting and drilling in South America and the Middle East, Haanstra was commissioned to promote one other avenue of Shell’s vast enterprise—pesticide. The resulting film, Strijd zonder einde (The Rival World), is slick and entirely effective in its urgent revelation that the plague of locusts is real and we must fight for humanity’s sake. Post-War and pre-Silent Spring, this film of mid-Century scientific progress is as riveting as it is alarming.

Rounding out the evening will be several other educational, entertaining, exotic and esoteric entomological films.

Free with $5 suggested donation.