Beacon Film Society presents…

VALVE TURNERS

7p Tuesday April 22, 2025

The Beacon Movie Theater 

445 Main Street  Beacon NY  12508

Q&A with director Steve Bonds-Liptay will follow the screening

A small group of activists travel to remote valve sites and take a daring stand against the fossil fuel industry. Acting in solidarity with Standing Rock, they carefully plan a bid to disrupt the entire flow of tar sands oil from Canada into the United States. Pipelines carrying 2.8 million barrels per day are halted, eliciting a firm counteraction from the fossil fuel industry and local authorities. Charged with 27 felonies and 15 misdemeanors, they face a protracted legal battle at district courts in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Washington. At jury trials in each state, their team of attorneys to defend their actions as a necessary response to the climate emergency.

 

2025 Wild & Scenic – Spirit of Activism Award WINNER

2024 DCTV Climate Film Fest   –  Jury Award WINNER

*****

 

 

From the Boston Tea Party to the Greensboro Four,

the American story is punctuated by ambitious small groups engaging in nonviolent resistance against injustice and the abuse of power. Again and again, people organize and use nonviolent tactics to galvanize the public around pressing issues.

I write this as the 2025 fires in Los Angeles are upending countless lives. The momentum of the climate emergency feels relentless and the fossil fuel industry’s grip on our lives, our politics and our economy can seem insurmountable.

In the years ahead, what will be our collective response? When political systems are captured by corporate interests, what will spur them to act? And if governments are unable to protect us, at what point must we take matters into our own hands?

These are difficult questions that the public continues to grapple with. They afford no easy answers. My hope is that VALVE TURNERS can support and amplify the ongoing conversations around direct action and legal strategies that challenge and expose the fossil fuel industry and their political allies.

Steve Liptay-Bonds
Steve Bonds-Liptay contributed cinematography and editing to the award-winning HBO documentary “How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change” which premiered at Sundance 2016. That same year, he co-directed and produced DIVEST!, a concert film about fossil fuel divestment and began filming VALVE TURNERS. Steve’s photography has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times and The Boston Globe.

 

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