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MAY 4-11
It’s a big world, and if the more than 50 films in this year’s Environmental Film Festival aren’t enough to encompass it all, they’re surely more than all but the most dedicated nature-film watcher can see. Unspooling all over town, the selections range from Eco-Rap: Voices From the Hood (10:45 a.m., May 4, Anacostia Museum) to the anthropomorphic The Congress of Penguins (8 p.m., May 11, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden). Among the likely highlights are the D.C. premiere of Echidna: The Survivor, a half-hour documentary about the “only surviving Jurassic mammal” (6:45 p.m., May 4, Embassy of Australia); Mustang: The Hidden Kingdom, a documentary feature about the isolated Himalayan kingdom (7 p.m., May 5, and 2 p.m, May 7, Freer Gallery of Art); the classic first Jacques Cousteau undersea film, 1956’s The Silent World (7 p.m., May 5, Library of Congress’ Pickford Theater); Zan Boko, the tale of an African village swallowed by a burgeoning city (1 p.m., May 6, National Museum of African Art); Picture of Light, a study of the aurora borealis (1 p.m., May 7, National Gallery of Art); Soleri’s Cities: Architecture for Planet Earth and Beyond, Hybrid City, and At Home With Mother Earth, three films that address ecological aspects of architecture (6 p.m., May 10, National Building Museum); and Akira Kurosawa’s epic portrait of a Siberian hunter, Dersu Uzala (pictured, 8:15 p.m., May 11, American Film Institute Theater). Most of the screenings are FREE. (202) 338-1129. (Mark Jenkins)