Kelseyville >> The inception can be traced back to once particular moment.
“Eight years ago my husband and I went to see the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and it was like getting kicked in the stomach,” said Shannon Tolson, the organizer of Second Sunday Cinema, a monthly film series that just moved its location from Clearlake to Kelseyville. “As I was telling Jim, my husband, ‘We must see these kinds of films. We need to know what’s going on, but we cant do it alone. We can’t get this kind of information alone,’” Tolson said.
Tolson decided to start a film series. The next morning she called up a friend who knew a lot of people in the area and he was enthusiastic about the idea. He put her in touch with the pastor of the Clearlake United Methodist Church to get things up and running. “And by George, within three days we were having meetings and within three weeks we showed our first film,” Tolson recalled.
In the beginning, Second Sunday Cinema wasn’t without its challenges, especially considering Tolson’s aversion to the limelight. But her desire to show important films was stronger than her anxiety. “My concern over the planet and its many denizens, its many inhabitants, my concern over weighs my fear of public speaking or doing anything public,” she said.
The second Sunday of each month, Tolson shows a film addressing important issues and topics in today’s society such as the economy, the environment, the prison system and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. She’s shown over 100 documentaries.
“They’re about 90 percent documentaries because I just think we need to know what’s going on,” she said. “We show documentaries most centrally on the economic system, because it affects every single one of our lives, day in and day out. Economic study is called the dismal science but those who control the economy want us to feel it’s too awful, too boring to pay attention to and we should just get back to our crocheting. But understanding the world economy as it’s set up is very empowering.”
Tolson is not only trying to empower people, she’s also attempting to create action. “When people gather together they can change things,” she said.
She went on to discuss a documentary about water corporations in Bolivia who were buying up rain water, hugely impacting the health of the community. “They had to decide, ‘Do I give my children clean water today or do I give them food because I can’t afford to do both?’ That is wrong,” Tolson said, growing heated. “So many poor people in Bolivia took to the streets. They won back the right to their own water … These are the kinds of things that we learn with these films. There are ongoing water issues right here in Lake County. People can be informed and then see if there’s something they can do about it to make it more just, more fair.”
Tolson works hard to keep up with current affairs. “We try to pick really well made films that share information about matters of current importance,” she said. “For instance, we plan to show ‘Citizenfour,’ which just won an Oscar for Best Documentary, just a couple days ago.”
Most recently Tolson presented “For the Bible Tells Me So”, a film on Christian families who accepted their gay children and what happened when one woman didn’t. “One of the people who had helped Second Sunday Cinema over the past 8 years had seen it. She is a Christian and she just loved the film. The reason she loved the film is because it shows what can happen when Christian families embrace their children when they’re gay … Because it shows the power of unconditional love is why I said, sure, I love this film. I’ll show it,” Tolson said. “Another reason this woman wanted Second Sunday Cinema to show this film, as she pointed out it’s an ongoing high conflict area for Christians right now. So it’s a current issue of importance.”
But Tolson isn’t always showing such serious films. She screened “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, a movie about a group of individuals who move to India for their retirement. “It’s kinda for older people who think they’re just going to be wheeling off in wheelchairs into a gray uncertain future,” Tolson explained. “It’s certainly not a documentary, but it’s uplifting. It says, ‘Hey, just because you’re in your 70s doesn’t mean your life is over.’ It’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful film.”
Tolson likes to present films that leave people feeling positive and hopeful, even when they address a more serious subject matter. “We do try to not totally bum people out,” she said. “You know, there’s a lot of bad news these days. We all need messages of hope, light in the darkness.” Second Sunday Cinema also occasionally features speakers after the films are through, to help expand on the ideas and topics previously presented. Tolson hopes to have more in the future and she’s setting her sights high. She explained that she’d previously shown “Inequality For All” and she plans to play it again. The film stars Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor under Clinton and she’s looking into acquiring him as a speaker. “This man told me it is possible that we could get Robert Reich over here,” Tolson said. “I would do almost anything I’m capable of to get that man up here.”
The event usually attracts 20 to 25 people, but a locally made film by a Native American man named James Blue Wolf brought out 90 people one Sunday. “I couldn’t even fit in the room,” Tolson recalled. “He opened up the film with drumming in a special, sacred service. Those are the kind of events that just have me saying, ‘Yes, this is why I do Second Sunday Cinema.’”
The screenings are just another way that community members can connect over the topics that are most important to them. “I think it benefits Lake County by bringing people together who are concerned about current issues,” Tolson said. “People often come in, they’re quiet, they sit down in their little chairs and they don’t say much. When the lights go up, we have a discussion, and learn from one another and learn what’s possible.”
Second Sunday Cinema is held at the United Methodist Church in Kelseyville at 6 p.m. and is always free of charge. March 8 will see “Doing Time, Doing Vipassana”, a documentary about bringing a special form of meditation to a notorious Indian prison. “There was a tremendous amount of positive change for those inmates who went through a very challenging period of long mediation. They emerged different people,” said Tolson. JoAnn Saccato will present meditation briefly after the film.
Tolson brings home-baked goods, organic popcorn and drinks for attendees. She takes on all of the financial costs without complaint.
“It’s just something that I do out of love for an event. We’re not a rich county. Most of these movies never make it up here and it’s so different watching a film with a whole bunch of other people and then getting to discuss it, because we have that semi formal discussion,” she explained. “I just do it for that, for those magical moments when people come together.”
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
