Ken Chowder

Movies

The Warrior Tradition
Writer
The astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why do they do it? Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands?
Famine à Jamestown
Director
Rising Voices/Hótȟaŋiŋpi
Writer
Rising Voices is the story about the imminent peril to the Lakota language. It braids together the struggles of Lakota to learn their tribal language today, the historical attempt by the United State to annihilate the language, the rise of immersion language schools, and the participation of outsiders in the rescue of the Lakota language. History is interwoven with present-day short films about the culture, created by Lakota filmmakers and artists.
Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America
Director
To Olmsted, a park was both a work of art and a necessity for urban life. Olmsted’s efforts to preserve nature created an “environmental ethic” decades before the environmental movement became a force in American politics. With gorgeous cinematography, and compelling commentary this film presents the biography of a man whose parks and preservation are an essential part of American life.
John James Audubon: Drawn From Nature
Writer
This beautifully photographed documentary profiles the surprising life of John James Audubon, one of the foremost naturalists, artists and explorers of the 19th century. Audubon's stunningly vivid wildlife portraits are examined in detail. A self-taught artist, Audubon was also a showman who reveled in dramatizing his Wild West adventures when he toured European drawing rooms. Audubon's fierce promotion of conservation is also discussed.
Niagara Falls
Writer
NIAGARA FALLS is more than the celebration of a natural wonder: it's a study of human achievement and human folly on an epic scale. It is a tale of exploitation and preservation and the changing nature of love in America - of the way Man has related to Nature over centuries. With spectacular high definition videography, the camera takes us to the edge of the falls via helicopter and boat; we see newsreel footage, actual weddings and much more
Influenza 1918
Writer
Influenza 1918 is the story of the worst epidemic the United States has ever known. Before it was over, the flu would kill more than 600,000 Americans - more than all the combat deaths of this century combined.
Wild by Law
Writer
Tells about the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the three men responsible for its passage: forester/philosopher Aldo Leopold, author of the bestselling Sand County almanac and the first to bring the word 'ecology' into standard usage; Bob Marshall, millionaire socialist and founder of the Wilderness Society; and Howard Zahniser, a bureaucrat with a love of the wild places he seldom saw. Singly and together, these three fought from the 1920s through the 1950s to preserve the natural world. Provides an overview of the roots of the environmental movement, offering a deeper understanding of one of the most important issues facing contemporary civilization.