Nashvillians Explore Local Sustainability Efforts Through New Documentary ‘It’s All Connected: The Art of Sustainability’
The concept of environmental sustainability can be abstract and overwhelming. Often we can’t see how our decisions affect the environment around us — whether positive or negative. We don’t typically see where our waste ends up or how much carbon emission our transportation methods result in or come into contact with the sea animal saved from not using a straw. While individual-level decisions may not be able to reverse wide scale environmental issues, they can have a positive impact that affects our planet, communities and everyday lives for the better.
A new documentary titled It’s All Connected: The Art of Sustainability explores its subject matter through a hyper-localized lens, revealing the many actions that Nashville residents and organizations are taking to invest in their community and create a more sustainable city in the process. It also highlights how these different actions inform one another, and how they can help us establish a deeper connection to our surroundings.
The film was released through Nashville Education, Community, and Arts Television. This local nonprofit, which became a part of the Nashville Public Library system in 2022, provides arts and education programming while also providing opportunities to learn about video production by offering guidance, equipment, resources and a place to broadcast projects. Alongside the new documentary, NECAT has helped make or distribute projects like The Sit-In Mixtape, which explores Nashville’s 1960 lunch counter sit-ins through the lens of hip hop, and Dr. Gangrene’s Cinetarium — a local TV horror show. NECAT studio manager Cameron McCasland is also the writer, director and co-producer of It’s All Connected.
“I keep telling people, the movie is not the answer,” McCasland told The Contributor at the film’s March 22 premiere at the main NPL branch. “We’re not answering the question of how every one of these things can be fixed.”
Instead of trying to answer all these complex questions about sustainability, the movie simply examines them with a bevy of local residents and changemakers. This exploration highlights how sustainability efforts can double as an act of love for our communities and a way to take care of our surroundings and our neighbors.
At its premier, Susan Drye, NPL’s assistant director for administrative services and sustainability committee chair, introduced the film as “a labor of love,” that took more than two years and the efforts of many different people to produce. Organizations represented in the film include: Urban Green Lab, Cumberland River Compact, the Nashville Zoo, Edgehill Garden and Bell Garden, the Nashville Public Library and more. A 2023 grant from Urban Green Lab’s Nashville Food Waste Initiative helped NPL’s sustainability committee start planning for the film.
McCasland explained to The Contributor how the various sub-topics of the film arose while examining how one aspect of sustainability affects the next. What started as an exploration of library-based sustainability efforts flowed into other topics like community gardens, which blossomed into a conversation about food access and drinking water. As conversations about the Cumberland River arose, so did the Nashville Zoo’s related aquatic conservation efforts, and so on. The film leverages the idea of interconnectedness as a way to transition from one sustainability-related topic to the next.
The film also celebrates the community connections that arise throughout these various efforts. Edgehill Community Garden Manager Brenda Morrow, for example, explains in the documentary how the garden provides opportunities for intergenezrational connection and education. The semi-regular Donelson Library Branch Repair Fair creates an opportunity for makers and tinkerers to exercise their skills while helping others fix items like lamps, bikes, small appliances and clothing. Not only do participants learn from one another in these settings, but they can save money by getting food from the gardens or fixing a broken item instead of buying a new one.
While local sustainability efforts offer positive outlooks, there are still many difficult truths that make these efforts necessary or prevent people from participating in them altogether. Community gardens, for example, often serve neighborhoods whose residents experience food insecurity or who cannot easily access fresh, healthy food. But even the most abundant garden cannot fix the systemic issues that create these conditions. Matters that intersect with sustainability such as racial equity, affordable housing and public transit are also explored in the film.
Though it leans into some difficult conversations and uncomfortable truths, It’s All Connected is careful not to lecture people on how to live a more “green” lifestyle, nor does it try to guilt viewers into doing so. McCasland noted during a panel discussion following the film’s premier that “the last thing we ever want is for people to feel bad about how they live their lives.”
People who appear in the film don’t purport to live perfectly sustainable lifestyles, either.
NPL employee Bassam Habib discusses the “cognitive dissonance” of knowing where he could make more environmentally-friendly decisions, but doesn’t because alternatives aren’t very practical or accessible. Creating space for these conversations provides an important reminder that one doesn’t have to dedicate their lives to sustainability or ignore it altogether — there can be a middle ground. Perhaps one still drives a car most days, but they choose to take a bus once a week. Or maybe someone doesn’t recycle, but they cut down on consumption by utilizing the library system.
“It’s not about doing everything yourself,” says McCasland. “It’s about every day trying to choose to do one thing better than you did the day before.”
The film and its related panel discussion can be viewed through NECAT, which operates local public television channels Music City Arts, iQtv and Access Nashville. These channels are broadcasted via Comcast cable channels 9, 10, and 19 in Davidson County and via AT&T U-Verse channel 99 in several other Middle Tennessee counties. Those without television channels can also download the NECAT app on Roku or lean on the NECAT website. The documentary and panel discussion is also published on NECAT’s Youtube page. Keep an eye on these channels for continued sustainability-related programs — McCasland hinted during the panel discussion about plans for an upcoming TV series called It’s Still Connected, which would follow up on the topics covered in the documentary to keep the conversation going.