Tag Archives: monarch migration

BEAUTY ON THE WING INVITED TO THE SWITZERLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL!

I am delighted to write that Beauty on the Wing has been accepted to the Switzerland International Film Festival, which runs from November 22 through the 25th. The festival is entirely virtual and I believe ours is screening on the foreign films screening day, which is November 22nd. As soon as I know the exact time, I’ll add it to this post.

Thank you to everyone who has so generously contributed to Beauty on the Wing. All the laurels that you see in the poster are in large parts thanks to you! Without your kind generosity, we would not have been able to submit to film festivals.

With gratitude and deep appreciation to the following for their generous contributions to Beauty on the Wing during both the first fundraiser and current fundraiser –

Lauren Mercadante, New England Biolabs, Jonathan and Sally Golding, James Masciarelli, Pete and Bobbi Kovner, Joeann Hart and Gordon Baird, Karrie Klaus (Boston), Sally Jackson, Marion Frost (Ipswich), Heidi and John Shiver (Pennsylvania), Marty and Russ Coleman, Joy Van Buskirk (Florida), Lillian and Craig Olmstead, Suki and Fil Agusti (Rockport), Janis Bell, Nina Groppo, Nubar Alexanian, Marguerite Matera, Claudia Bermudez, Thomas Hauck, Judith Foley (Woburn), Jane Paznik-Bondarin (New York), Paul Vassallo (Beverly), Stella Martin, Liv Hauck (California), Julia Williams Robinson (Minnesota), Cynthia Dunn, Diane Gustin, John Ronan, Karen Maslow, Fernando Arriaga (Mexico City), Holly Nipperus (Arizona), Kristina Gale (California), Maggie Debbie, Kate and Peter Van Demark (Rockport), Mia Nehme (Beverly), Chicki Hollet, Alice Gardner (Beverly), Therese Desmarais (Rockport), Jennie Meyer, Kathy Gerdon Archer (Beverly), Melissa Weigand (Salem), Duncan Todd (Lexington), Catherine Ryan, Linda Bouchard (Danvers), Elaine Mosesian, Paul Wegzyn (Ipswich), Catherine Bayliss, Alessandra Borges (Rhode Island), Jan Waldman (Swampscott), Carolyn Constable (Pennsylvania), Nancy Mattern (New Mexico), Ian Gardiner, Judy Arisman, Tom Schaefer, Margaret Thompson, Edward DeJesus (Maryland), Kim Tieger (Manchester), Mary Weissblum, Nancy Leavitt, Susan Pollack, Alice and David Gardner (Beverly), Kristina and Gene Martin, Gail and Thomas Pease (Beverly), Carol and Duncan Ballantyne (Beverly), Sharon Byrne Kashida, John Hauck Foundation, New Breeze Foundation, Jan and Bob Crandall, Nina Goodick, Sherman Morss, Jay Featherstone, Juni VanDyke, Karen Maslow, Kimberly McGovern, Megan Houser (Pride’s Crossing), Jim VanBuskirk (Pittsburgh), Donna Stroman, Joey Ciaramitaro, Robert Redis (New York), Hilda Santos (Saugus), Patricia VanDerpool, Fred Fredericks (Chelmsford), Leslie Heffron, Dave Moore (Korea), John Steiger, Pat Dalpiaz, Amy Kerr, Barbara T. (Jewett, NY), Roberta C. (NY), Marianne G. (Windham, NY), Paula Ryan O’Brien (Walton, NY), Martha Swanson, Patti Sullivan, Ronn Farren, Susan Nadworny (Merose), Diane Lindquist (Manchester), Jennifer Cullen, Eric Hutchins and Julia McMahon, C. Lovgren, Joan Keefe, Linda Kaplan, Mary Rhinelander, Ann Cortissoz, Mark Nelson (Essex), Christine and Paul Callahan and Wasserman, Todd Pover (Springfield), Martin Del Vecchio, Ellen Higgins, Maggie Debbie, Mary John Boylan, Michelle Barton and Christopher Anderson, Lyda Kuth and Maria Letunic (Belmont), Forsythe-Fandetti Family (Cambridge)

MONARCH MIGRATION UPDATE AND WE HAVE ACHIEVED OUR FUNDRAISING GOAL!!

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Dear Monarch Friends,

We have wonderful, fantastic news to share. With thanks and gratitude to all of you, we have surpassed our fundraising goal. I don’t yet have the total as we are waiting for two last minute contributions, but will let you know after they arrive. Because of your kind generosity we were able to complete Beauty on the Wing with our very professional film finisher, Eric, participate in film festivals, and now bring our documentary to public television. As mentioned in a previous email, 88.5 percent of public television stations across the US will be airing Beauty on the Wing, beginning in February of 2022. These stations also cover 23 of the top 25 markets.

My heart is full of gratitude and thanks to each and everyone for all you have contributed. I would like to give a special thanks to my friend Lauren, who has been extraordinarily generous and who loves Monarchs. Wherever she calls home, she creates beautiful, productive habitats for birds and butterflies, and also loves raising Monarchs (and Cecropia Moths!).

MONARCHS ON THE HOME FRONT

More great news to share – Six in total of the crazily late caterpillars that we had in our garden have flown the coop. Two prior to the storm and four on Halloween at mid-day. One butterfly eclosed Halloween morning but three had eclosed around the time of the storm. It was way too cold and windy for the three to fly. They stayed very quiet, barely moving for almost a week while we waited for the weather to shift again. Halloween morning, I put them out on a sunny patch of zinnias as temperatures were expected to reach the low sixties. Sure enough, around noon time they all began emerging from their deep, deep sleep, quivering and shivering to warm their flight muscles. All four (two males and two females) took off in a southwesterly direction after about fifteen minutes of wing warming.

My friend Caroline Haines shares she saw another migrating Monarch last week near GHS, Sherman Morss shares he saw several Monarchs last week on Eastern Point, as have I seen a number of Monarchs (and Sulphurs and American Ladies) at EP, mostly drinking nectar from the yellow flowers of Black Mustard.

MONARCH MIGRATION EAST OF THE ROCKIES

The first Monarchs have been sighted by our friends Ellen and Joel at their JM Butterfly B&B, which is located at Cerro Pelon, one of the most pristinely beautiful Monarch sanctuaries. The Monarchs arrived just in time for the family’s Dia de Muertos celebration! Roosts are beginning to form around the mountainside.

I love this graphic posted by Monarch Friends at Point Pelee, Monarch to Monarca.

MONARCH MIGRATION WEST OF THE ROCKIES

Two years ago, in 2019, 29,436 Monarch Butterflies were counted at the California overwintering sites. In 2020, only 1,899 were counted. So far this year, the unofficial counts put the population at about 14,000 at Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove and as of October 29, almost 10,000 were counted at Pacific Grove. Roosts with smaller numbers have been counted at Santa Cruz, Ventura, and elsewhere, all locations at well above the 2019 and 2018 levels. These are unofficial numbers because Monarchs are still arriving!

ANTENNAE FOR MONARCH NEWS!

A group of biologists and engineers from the University of Michigan is developing a new system for determining the daily flight paths of migrating Monarchs. The group has designed a teeny solar-powered sensor equal to the weight of an uncooked flake of oatmeal. The sensor will be attached to the thorax (mid part of the Monarch’s body from where the wings extend). Wherever the butterfly is located, the sensor will record time, temperature, and light. When a sensor-bearing Monarch is in the range of a detector, the data from the Monarch’s migratory path can be downloaded and its location determined for each day. For more information, go here https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3447993.3483263.

Dia de Muertos on Plum Street

Happy Autumn Days! and for a collection of photos of songbirds feasting on autumn fruits and berries go here – A very berry good morning to you!

xoKim

With gratitude and deep appreciation to the following for their generous contributions to Beauty on the Wing during both the first fundraiser and the current fundraiser –

Lauren Mercadante, New England Biolabs, Jonathan and Sally Golding, James Masciarelli, Pete and Bobbi Kovner, Joeann Hart and Gordon Baird, Karrie Klaus (Boston), Sally Jackson, Marion Frost (Ipswich), Heidi and John Shiver (Pennsylvania), Marty and Russ Coleman, Joy Van Buskirk (Florida), Lillian and Craig Olmstead, Suki and Fil Agusti (Rockport), Janis Bell, Nina Groppo, Nubar Alexanian, Marguerite Matera, Claudia Bermudez, Thomas Hauck, Judith Foley (Woburn), Jane Paznik-Bondarin (New York), Paul Vassallo (Beverly), Stella Martin, Liv Hauck (California), Julia Williams Robinson (Minnesota), Cynthia Dunn, Diane Gustin, John Ronan, Karen Maslow, Fernando Arriaga (Mexico City), Holly Nipperus (Arizona), Kristina Gale (California), Maggie Debbie, Kate and Peter Van Demark (Rockport), Mia Nehme (Beverly), Chicki Hollet, Alice Gardner (Beverly), Therese Desmarais (Rockport), Jennie Meyer, Kathy Gerdon Archer (Beverly), Melissa Weigand (Salem), Duncan Todd (Lexington), Catherine Ryan, Linda Bouchard (Danvers), Elaine Mosesian, Paul Wegzyn (Ipswich), Catherine Bayliss, Alessandra Borges (Rhode Island), Jan Waldman (Swampscott), Carolyn Constable (Pennsylvania), Nancy Mattern (New Mexico), Ian Gardiner, Judy Arisman, Tom Schaefer, Margaret Thompson, Edward DeJesus (Maryland), Kim Tieger (Manchester), Mary Weissblum, Nancy Leavitt, Susan Pollack, Alice and David Gardner (Beverly), Kristina and Gene Martin, Gail and Thomas Pease (Beverly), Carol and Duncan Ballantyne (Beverly), Sharon Byrne Kashida, John Hauck Foundation, New Breeze Foundation, Jan and Bob Crandall, Nina Goodick, Sherman Morss, Jay Featherstone, Juni VanDyke, Karen Maslow, Kimberly McGovern, Megan Houser (Pride’s Crossing), Jim VanBuskirk (Pittsburgh), Donna Stroman, Joey Ciaramitaro, Robert Redis (New York), Hilda Santos (Saugus), Patricia VanDerpool, Fred Fredericks (Chelmsford), Leslie Heffron, Dave Moore (Korea), John Steiger, Pat Dalpiaz, Amy Kerr, Barbara T. (Jewett, NY), Roberta C. (NY), Marianne G. (Windham, NY), Paula Ryan O’Brien (Walton, NY), Martha Swanson, Patti Sullivan, Ronn Farren, Susan Nadworny (Merose), Diane Lindquist (Manchester), Jennifer Cullen, Eric Hutchins and Julia McMahon, C. Lovgren, Joan Keefe, Linda Kaplan, Mary Rhinelander, Ann Cortissoz, Mark Nelson (Essex), Christine and Paul Callahan and Wasserman, Todd Pover (Springfield), Martin Del Vecchio, Ellen Higgins, Maggie Debbie, Mary John Boylan, Forsythe-Fandetti Family, Michelle Barton and Christopher Anderson, Lyda Kuth and Maria Letunic (Belmont), Forsythe-Fandetti Family (Cambridge)

Drop-in on a Zoom Re-cap with the Providence Children’s Film Festival Tonight!

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Missed chatting with friends and neighbors about the films you saw at this year’s Providence Children’s Film Festival? Join us for a Zoom discussion! This evening, anytime between 5:30-7:00 pm and share. Link is https://zoom.us/j/93126124781

Perhaps you would like to share your thoughts https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSf41…/viewform…

We look forward to hearing from you!

The complete list of award-winning films at PCFF 2021!!

BEAUTY ON THE WING: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly – Special Jury Award Best Feature Documentary Film (USA / 2020)

THE CLUB OF UGLY CHILDREN Audience Choice Award Best Live-Action Feature (Netherlands / 2019)

FIRST WE EAT Audience Choice Award Best Feature Documentary Film (Canada / 2020)

THE MAGIC OF CHESS – Audience Choice Award Best Short Documentary Film (USA / 2019)

CROCODILE – Audience Choice Award Best Short Live-Action Film (Spain / 2020)

ATHLETICUS: Sled Audience Choice Award Best Short Animated Film (France / 2020)

MY BROTHER CHASES DINOSAURS : Special Jury Award Best Feature Live-Action Film (Italy / 2020)

2ND CLASS – Special Jury Award Best Short Live-Action Film (Sweden / 2020)

LEAF Special Jury Award Best Short Animated Film (Belarus / 2020)

THE BEAUTY Global Awareness Short Film Award (Germany / 2020)

A TINY TALE Emerging Filmmaker/s Award (France / 2020)

THE PROMISE Children’s Hospital Jury Award (UK / 2020)

If you missed our Q&A’s with filmmakers you can still catch them recorded HERE!

MY BROTHER CHASES DINOSAURS : Special Jury Award Best Feature Live-Action Film (Italy / 2020)

2ND CLASS – Special Jury Award Best Short Live-Action Film (Sweden / 2020)

LEAF Special Jury Award Best Short Animated Film (Belarus / 2020)

THE BEAUTY Global Awareness Short Film Award (Germany / 2020)

A TINY TALE Emerging Filmmaker/s Award (France / 2020)

THE PROMISE Children’s Hospital Jury Award (UK / 2020)

If you missed our Q&A’s with filmmakers you can still catch them recorded HERE!

CURRENTLY WATCHING “THE LAST LIGHTKEEPERS” AT THE VIRTUAL PROVIDENCE CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL!

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All this school vacation week, the Providence Children’s Film Festival is airing an outstanding collection of wonderfully educational and interesting films for families and kids of all ages. Tickets are only $12.50 per film for the entire family. Or you can do as I did and buy a pass, which allows for viewing all films all week long. Beauty on the Wing is playing through Saturday and I will be part of a Q and A at 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. Please vote for BotWing after watching the film. Thank you!

At this moment I am currently watching The Last Lightkeepers. This is a film I have been especially super excited to see largely because I think here in Gloucester we should form a Friends of Gloucester Lighthouses Association. Our lighthouses are in increasingly deplorable condition. I would like very much for we in Gloucester to follow in the footsteps of Rockort’s Paul St. Germain and the Thacher Island Association in restoring our lighthouses and the surrounding grounds.

The Last Lightkeepers – This stunning documentary explores lighthouses across New England (including in Rhode Island) and the sadly decaying condition of many of them. Many abandoned lighthouses haven’t been tended to in decades or since they were replaced by updated tools of navigation. Director Rob Apse captures the beauty of these American sentinels that once defined a nation’s coastline. The Last Lightkeepers highlights stories of individuals currently fighting to preserve these structures while capturing their folklore before the lights go dim forever.

This week only, find this and more fabulous films at the Providence Children’s Film Festival

BEAUTY ON THE WING BEGINS AIRING VIRTUALLY FRIDAY FEBRUARY 12TH AT 4PM!

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Please join me at the virtual screening of Beauty on the Wing at the Providence Children’s Film Festival. Screenings begin tomorrow, Friday the 12th, at 4pm. Tickets are only $12.50 per family and can be purchased here at Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly (Feature Doc)

Scene from Beauty on the Wing – Standing atop Cerro Pelón and looking down into a valley of exploding Monarchs

For further reading and some terrific background information, see the following article, published by the NRDC in early February of this year. Scenes from Beauty on the Wing were filmed at the stunning forest at the Cerro Pelón Monarch Butterfly sanctuary.

NRDC Profiles:

For a Family in Mexico, a Mission to Protect Monarchs

Siblings Joel, Anayeli, and Patricio Moreno see the future of their community and that of the butterflies that migrate annually to the local Cerro Pelón forest as being intimately connected.

February 09, 2021 Nicole Greenfield

If there’s something that the Moreno family agrees on, it’s that monarch butterflies changed their lives. And not just their own but the lives of most in Macheros, Mexico. The agricultural village of 400 people—whose name translates to “stables” in Spanish, because of the 100 horses that also make their home here—sits at the entrance to Cerro Pelón, one of four sanctuaries in Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, established by the federal government in 1986.

It started when Melquiades Moreno de Jesus secured a job as a forest ranger, or guardabosque, in 1982. Six years earlier, National Geographic had run a feature on monarch migration, bringing international attention to the butterflies’ overwintering sites in the mountainous oyamel fir forests some 80 miles west of Mexico City—though locals had discovered the colonies long before outsiders descended on the area. Soon after that publication, the State of Mexico’s Commission of Natural Parks and Wildlife (Comisión Estatal de Parques Naturales y de la Fauna, or CEPANAF) established the local forest ranger positions, employing men from Macheros to patrol the part of the sanctuary that’s in the state of Mexico. (Part of the butterfly reserve also lies in the state of Michoacán.) CEPANAF hired Melquiades several years later and he stayed on, monitoring the butterflies and deterring illegal loggers, for more than three decades.

The village of Macheros; Cerro Pelón is the tallest peak on the right. Ellen Sharp Photo

“When my dad got the job as a forest ranger, it changed our lives,” says Joel Moreno Rojas, the fourth-born of Melquiades’s 10 children. His father’s steady income brought the family out of poverty and afforded the children the chance to go to school. It also instilled a sense of local pride and inspired his family’s commitment to caring for the natural wonder at their doorstep.

Among the Moreno siblings, three have continued their father’s legacy: Joel, Anayeli, and sixth-born Patricio (“Pato”). Pato took over Melquiades’s forest ranger position after his dad’s retirement in 2014. When the monarchs are roosting in Cerro Pelón, roughly from November to March, he spends many days near the overwintering colonies, monitoring them and asking visitors not to disturb the impressive clusters. The butterflies, which have migrated thousands of miles from the eastern part of the United States, are drawn to the oyamel canopy—which provides insulation and keeps out the elements—for their winter rest. “I love it,” says the father of two. “It’s the most marvellous thing that could have happened in my life to have a job like this.”

Pato Moreno at work in Cerro Pelón after a rainstorm. Ellen Sharp Photo

Being among hundreds of thousands of butterflies sparks such an intense emotional reaction that the Moreno siblings say it is impossible to name. When they do find the words, they describe experiencing the monarchs as powerful, beautiful, and emotional. Joel has seen visitors drop to their knees and pray or break out in tears when they first see the butterflies, who some locals believe are the souls of their ancestors, since the migrating monarchs arrive in Macheros right around the first of November, el Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead.

“As Mexicans, we should all be proud of the butterflies,” Pato continues. “I’d like everyone to understand the value of the forest, because it helps us and it helps the butterflies.”

MONARCHS IN THE NEWS – ENDANGERED, BUT NOT ENOUGH TO WARRANT PROTECTIONS

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The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that Monarchs are indeed threatened with extinction, but will not be added to the US list of Endangered and Threatened Species. The official designation is “warranted, but precluded,” which means they fall in line behind 161 other species considered more endangered.

Monarchs mating in a patch of Common Milkweed, Good Harbor Beach Gloucester

From USFWS –

What action did the Service take?
We have made a 12-month finding on a petition to list the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Based on a thorough review of the monarch’s status, we determined that listing is warranted, but a proposal to list the monarch is precluded at this time while we work on higher-priority listing actions.

Is the monarch federally protected now?
No. Our 12-month finding does not protect monarchs under the ESA at this time. We first must propose the monarch for listing as either an endangered or threatened species, gather and analyze public comments and any new information, and using the best available science, make a final decision and publish a final rule. That process is deferred while we work on higher-priority listing actions.

What is a 12-month finding?
Under the ESA, when we receive a petition to list a species, we first make a 90-day finding, in which we evaluate the information in the petition to see if it is substantial enough to begin a review of the species’ status. If it is a substantial finding, we then prioritize the species in our evaluation process, and at the appropriate time, we begin a status review. The culmination of that review is a 12-month finding on whether listing is warranted, not warranted, or warranted but precluded by higher-priority listing actions.

Who petitioned the Service to list the monarch?
The Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Xerces Society and a private individual petitioned us in 2014 to list the monarch. We made a positive 90-day finding in December 2014 and launched the status review in 2016.

Read more questions and answers here on the USFWS website –

Questions and Answers: 12-month finding on a petition to list the monarch butterfly

For further reading –

Monarchs and the Endangered Species Act

Monarch Butterflies Qualify for Endangered List. They Still Won’t Be Protected

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Finds Endangered Species Act Listing for Monarch Butterfly Warranted but Precluded

Officials agree monarch butterflies belong on endangered species list, but still won’t protect them

Assessing the Staaus of the Monarch Butterfly

Monarch butterflies denied endangered species listing despite shocking decline

Happy News to Share!

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Dear Friends,

I hope you are well and staying safe. The happiest of news is that a vaccine is on the way. I am praying with all my heart that you all stay healthy between now and when we will be vaccinated and protected by herd immunity.

On a lighter note, I am delighted to share that Beauty on the Wing received an Outstanding Excellence award from the Nature Without Border’s Film Festival, and even more excited to share that we are an official selection to the Providence Children’s Film Festival. The Providence Children’s Film Festival takes place in mid-February (we don’t yet have the dates to share). The best news is that the film is geo-blocked to Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, which means film friends in Massachusetts will be able to participate in virtual screenings. More information to follow, as soon as the schedule is made public.

I am overjoyed that Beauty on the Wing is finding acceptance at both children’s and conservation festivals; that jurors see it as it was meant to be, a conservation film for people of all ages.

Take care dear Friends and stay well. Better days are sure to come.

Warmest wishes,

Kim

“BEAUTY ON THE WING” AWARDED BEST DOCUMENTARY AT THE BOSTON INTERNATIONAL KIDS FILM FESTIVAL

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Dear Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Just a quick note to let you know that the awards for the Boston International Kids Film Festival were announced today and Beauty on the Wing was given Best Documentary. Simply overjoyed !!

The festival went very, very well. The organizers, Laura Azevedo and Natalia Morgan from Filmmakers Collaborative, working with WGBH, did an extraordinary and outstanding job producing an online film festival, no easy feat, but especially during a global pandemic! I was able to view many of the films and they were wonderfully entertaining and inspiring. I am so proud Beauty on the Wing was a part of the BIKFF 2020!

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving, wherever that may be during these most challenging of days.

Warmest wishes,
Kim

Boston International Kids Film Festival 2020

Best Documentary
Winner: Beauty on the Wing: The Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly

Best Foreign Language Film
Winner: Kapaemahu

Best Animated Short Film
Winner: The Magical Forest and the Things

Best Live Action Short Film
Winner: Esme Gets a Job.

The Peggy Charren Award for Excellence
Winner: All American Kids

Best Student Narrative Film
Winner: First Dances! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Best Student Documentary Film
Winner: DACAmented

CAPE ANN BEACON WICKED LOCAL BEAUTY ON THE WING FEATURE STORY

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Thank you so much to Joseph Barrett for the interview and feature story in the Cape Ann Beacon/Wicked Local for Beauty on the Wing!

Block #3 Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly

Today, November 21st 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Purchase tickets here:

https://bikff.org/schedule/

Can Ann Butterflies Featured at Festival

Gloucester filmmakers documentary featured at Boston International Kids Film Festival

Joseph Barrett

November 20, 2020

Gloucester resident Kim Smith will showcase her film on butterflies at the Boston International Kids Film Festival on Saturday, Nov. 21

Smith’s “Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly” is a 56-minute narrated film featuring visuals of Cape Ann and Mexico’s volcanic mountains.

The film explores the life journey of the monarch butterfly from birth, and talks about environmental impacts that led to it being an endangered species.

“I think butterflies are beautiful. They make a garden come to life,” Smith said.

The picture will not only share information about monarchs, but will bring attention to other endangered species as well, said Smith.

The film is 10 years in the making, she said. The idea of the film came to her in 2006 when Smith was writing a book about monarch butterflies and taking pictures of them.

“It was a phenomenal migration that year and they just kept pouring in,” Smith said. “Over the years, I just kept at it.”

Smith bought a video camera and took it with her wherever she went.

Smith traveled to Mexico twice to film, and other parts of the project were shot in Gloucester. She said she enjoys incorporating Cape Ann because it’s a “special and unique place” that’s full of hardworking people.

“I love my community, I love the people in my community. It’s truly my home,” Smith said.

Smith then reached out to the Boston International Kids Film Festival, who helped her through the process of presenting her film.

The festival, taking place November 20-22, will be held virtually due to the coronavirus.

The festival includes 70 animated short and narrative films from 17 countries, all directed towards children.

Laura Azevedo is the executive director of the festival, who said it’s important to help creators get their stories out to the world.

“We’ve been a resource for independent filmmakers all over the country,” Azevedo said. “It’s a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to it.”

Azevedo said Smith’s film will do a great job connecting with children. Kids will get access to the movie and a zoom link to interact with Smith about butterflies and the filmmaking process.

“Kim’s film is an example of one where we work with schools as well,” Azevedo said.

Smith hasn’t just helped the environment on-screen. Kim Smith Designs was launched in 1985, and Smith has designed and maintained gardens in locations such as Gloucester, Cambridge, and Andover.

The award-winning landscape designer now brings her talents to the screen, and said she appreciates the Boston International Kids Film Festival for highlighting her findings.

“It’s grown and grown and grown over the past eight years,” Smith said. “Filmmakers are provided an opportunity to showcase their work.”

Her film will be during block #3 of the festival on Saturday, Nov. 21 at noon. To purchase tickets to the festival, visit this link: https://bikff.org/schedule/

“Filmmaking is one of the best ways in the world to communicate,” Smith said.

Joseph Barrett is a senior communication student at Endicott College.

WBUR’S ERIN TRAHAN HAS SOME TERRIFIC THINGS TO SAY ABOUT BEAUTY ON THE WING!!

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Sheltering At Home, Families Get Creative With Entries For Boston International Kids Film Festival

The ARTery

November 17, 2020

By Erin Trahan

The Boston International Kids Film Festival (BIKFF) typically celebrates films made by, for, or about kids with an annual in-person festival. But this year, as with so much else, the festival had to pivot to a virtual presentation. The mostly short films can introduce kids to nature, help them think critically about race, or see what remote learning looks like in other parts of the world. Some are educational, some have a message, and plenty are just plain funny.

The festival was started eight years ago by the Filmmakers Collaborative, a Melrose-based organization that provides support to media makers. Executive director Laura Azevedo says that a lot of members made documentaries “with hopes of getting into schools or libraries and hoping young people would see them and discuss them.” BIKFF gave them, and youth filmmakers, an outlet for their work. The youth-made films quickly became the most popular, she says, because kids bring lots of friends and families into the theater.

Though this year the festivities will happen entirely online from Nov. 20-22, Azevedo still expects great attendance over the 10 blocks of film screenings. Since independent films are not rated, BIKFF breaks down viewing in various ways — by suggested viewer age, movie form and language. All of the films with English subtitles stream together, for example, as do all of the student-made films. At press time, each block will stream once, at a scheduled time, and is followed by a live Q&A.

…On Saturday, Nov. 21, in Block #3, the fest showcases an excellent pick for nature lovers. Screening at noon, Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly, gets up close and personal with the remarkable molting, migrating insect. With footage gathered over more than 10 years, some from her own back yard, Gloucester’s Kim Smith has become not just a nearly one-woman documentary crew but also a vocal Monarch expert and advocate.

Beauty on the Wing especially excels in patient, extreme close-ups of the caterpillar releasing its exoskeleton, as well as the butterflies sleeping and mating. In addition to its scheduled screening, schools can sign up to stream this documentary Nov. 16-Nov. 20 and also participate in a Q&A with the director.