Parasites: A User's Guide: Director Sharon Shattuck Turns Monsters into Medicine

In the 27-minute experimental documentary Parasites: A User’s Guide, ecologist and filmmaker Sharon Shattuck argues for parasites as treatment for  autoimmune diseases, asthma, and allergies. The documentary shows how tiny parasitic worms called 'helminths' can ease these diseases' symptoms.

Using a blend of handmade and digital animation and indie music, Sharon dives headlong into the controversial discourse surrounding 'helminthic therapy,' with help from scientific researchers, active patients and a renegade entrepreneur named Jasper Lawrence.  Through the seeming oxymoron of the 'helpful parasite,' Sharon questions the nature of our relationship with parasites--and suggests a new paradigm for the future. "Parasites: A User’s Guide" is a film about ecology, healing, and worms.

According to an interview with Shattuck, "Parasites were the perfect subjects for me because I wanted to show some of these unlikely connections in a creative way — using animation, music and humor — but it wasn’t until I started really researching them that I discovered the world of people who are using parasites to overcome autoimmune diseases. I loved the juxtaposition of something that most people think is evil with what is in fact a very good thing: the curing, or at least abating, of disease symptoms. It was the perfect example of ecology helping people."

Later in the interview, Shattuck explained why she decided to tackle parasites: " I started working on the film before I became an intern with Radiolab, but once I found out that Radiolab would be doing an episode on parasites, even using some of my film’s characters (Jasper Lawrence, Dr. Joel Weinstock), I decided to step it up and not just explain the science behind the worms (called ‘helminths’), but question the prejudices that we all hold about certain words, and the consequences to our health. If helminths were called ‘probiotics’ instead of ‘parasites’ or ‘worms,’ would we view them any differently?

Grandmother's Circle--A Tribute to Crecy's People and to Sallie Alpha: An Installation by Alpha Bruton

Grandmother’s Circle - A Tribute to Crecy's People and to Sallie Alpha: An Installation by Alpha Bruton

A photograph of Tribute to Crecy's People and Sallie Alpha, an environmental installation by Alpha Bruton, 2013.

Alpha Bruton’s installation is a simulation of a ceremonial purification circle, in which objects and images are selected to “serve as cultural mirrors and the sites in which they are situated serve as part of a broader cultural commentary.” The artist has examined cultural signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. She believes that objects in the public sphere serve to communicate and reinforce certain cultural narratives, hierarchies, and social mythologies.

A painter and an installation artist, Bruton synthesizes aspects of set design in film and theatre, sculpture, and other two-dimensional forms. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues in Canada, Mexico, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and on the Western Rim. Bruton is the Tarble Arts Center’s 2013 Arts-In-Education artist-in-residence, and will be in residence at four area schools between Nov. 11 through Dec. 13. The residency is funded by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, by participating schools, the Coles County Arts Council, and Tarble membership contributions.

Embarras Valley Film Festival 2013: Nature in the Documentary

Embarras Valley Film Festival 2013 

              Environmental Shorts and Features Screened!

November 7- 9, 2013

Strip-Mall Nature. David Gracon, Director

Strip-Mall Nature is an observational meditation on the poetic intersection of nature and human constructed spaces designed primarily for human consumerism. The video is part of Gracon’s “Ordinary Video Series” where he spontaneously captures documentary events on his smartphone and edits them into short, visual, haiku-like videos.

One Year’s Crop. Rick Sands, Director

Back on the farm upon the death of his father, Robert Biggs, long an actor, musician, composer and writer, struggles to reconcile the story of where he came from, with the stories he now writes for the stage. Haunting, big sky visuals of the windswept prairie support a memoir unfolding in four patient seasons.

The Florida Suite. Jeff Thompson, Director

The Florida Suite is a poetic documentary about a citrus farmer living in a log cabin who cares for his aged mother, his dogs, and his land.

Between Two Rivers, Jacob Cartwright and Nick Jordan, Directors

Between Two Rivers offers a remarkable insight into the community of Cairo, Illinois and its struggles with severe economic, social and environmental pressures. The film juxtaposes the city’s tumultuous past against the backdrop of the latest crisis to afflict the community: the record-breaking floods of spring 2011, when the rising Ohio and Mississippi rivers threatened to destroy the town. 

Filmed on the surrounding levees, rivers, lakes and woodlands the documentary explores Cairo's relationship to the unique environment that encircles the town. The tip of southern Illinois is a biological midpoint of the USA; a region of natural diversity where numerous species and terrains meet at the limits of their northern and southern range. At a time when national governments are reeling from the effects of a global financial crisis, Between Two Rivers reveals the stark effects of economic inequalities, environmental disasters and social injustice, as experienced by the people of one beleaguered town caught between two mighty rivers.

Expedition Nature’s Realm: The Anthropocene Era, Cameron Craig, Director

This film is part of an eight part documentary series that explores the coexistence between humanity and nature that is Earth. Throughout the series, issues that concern the future of the natural environment are presented with vivid images of nature at work in the past and present with the hopes that viewers make their own decision what is to be done for the future. After all, we are all equal and temporary inhabitants of this precious but fragile dot in a very large universe. In the second episode, "The Anthropocene Era," we explore the the positive and negative influence humans have on the natural environment.

New Book: Film and Everyday Eco-disasters

Film and Everyday Eco-disasters Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann

Eco-disasters such as coal-mining accidents, oil spills, and food-borne diseases appear regularly in the news, making them seem nearly commonplace. These ecological crises highlight the continual tensions between human needs and the environmental impact these needs produce. Contemporary documentaries and feature films explore environmental-human conflicts by depicting the consequences of our overconsumption and dependence on nonrenewable energy.

Film and Everyday Eco-disasters examines changing perspectives toward everyday eco-disasters as reflected in the work of filmmakers from the silent era forward, with an emphasis on recent films such as Dead Ahead, an HBO dramatization of the Exxon Valdez disaster; Total Recall, a science fiction action film highlighting oxygen as a commodity; The Devil Wears Prada, a comment on the fashion industry; and Food, Inc., a documentary interrogation of the food industry. 

The authors evaluate not only the success of these films as rhetorical arguments but also their rhetorical strategies. This interdisciplinary approach to film studies fuses cultural, economic, and literary critiques in articulating an approach to ecology that points to sustainable development as an alternative to resource exploitations and their associated everyday eco-disasters.