Amherst Cinema, Amherst, Massachusetts

There was a full house for the screening of Symbiotic Earth on March 6, 2019 at the Amherst Cinema held in celebration of Lynn Margulis’ birthday – she would have been 81 years old.  A number of Margulis’s former colleagues and friends were in the audience.
Dorion Sagan, Margulis’ son and co-author, introduced the screening and lead a post-screening discussion on Lynn Margulis’s Evolution Revolution. Carol Johnson, the Amherst Cinema’s Executive Director, sent us an email saying: “SYMBIOTIC EARTH offers a compelling portrait of Lynn Margulis as a fearless and inspiring scientist. Dorion Sagan’s conversation with our audience after the screening was thoughtful and articulate, giving us all additional insights into Lynn Margulis as a scientific colleague and as a human being.”      This event was part of Science on Screen: Compelling films paired with lively talks by experts in science, technology and medicine. Science on Screen is an initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre with major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
(Photo courtesy of Amherst Cinema: Dorion Sagan speaking at Amherst Cinema screening)

Bijou Theatre, Bridgeport, Connecticut

Community radio station WPKN of Bridgeport CT showed Symbiotic Earth March 6, 2019 to a crowd of just under 50 people. Kevin Gallagher the host of the radio program Digging in the Dirt, introduced the film, and filmmaker John Feldman joined via Skype for a post screening discussion and to answer questions from the audience. The audience expressed their surprise that they had never heard of Lynn Margulis who was such a dynamic, amazing woman. They also said they hoped that Margulis’ final scientific work will find its rightful place by being published. WPKN will continue monthly screenings of films concerning farming, health and climate change, with the next film screening on Earth Day April 22. WPKN serves Fairfield, Litchfield and New Haven counties and the North Shore of Long Island, NY. We received an email from Megan Haney of Marble Valley Farm:

Hi John Feldman,
I was in the audience at the PKN screening the other night …  a truly wonderful film … naturally you make the first right decision in choosing your subject! (or, as you showed, letting her choose you) …
…  I just loved all the choices you made from there.  Keeping it personal to your story at times … particularly loved the device of having the windowpanes in your study reflect your experimental new-views as you pondered the ramifications of Lynn Margulis’s theories.  I was a bio major in college a few decades ago and also loved the scenes of Lynn on the beach and in the classroom.  I particularly loved the scenes of her slicing up the beach and, to my amazement, finding much more than sand.
 …  I’m already fantasizing about purchasing a copy of the film next winter, and setting up a home viewing for the fellow farmers in my neck of the woods who would be as rocked by your film as I.
Thank you so much for bringing Lynn’s story, and your story with her, to light.
best, Megan