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From the sharper-than-sharp images of the planet taken from Satellite’s circling the globe to thrilling shots of a Humpback Whale mother supporting her calf on the ocean surface, EARTH, a breathtaking and dazzling new film about our planet’s environment and the creatures who inhabit it will open at the Drexel Theatre, 2254 E. Main St. on Wednesday, April 22 (Earth Day) for a special limited engagement. Conceived by the filmmakers who produced the Emmy-Award winning BBC/Discovery series, “Planet Earth”, the film brings new never-before scene images to the big screen. The filmmakers spent five years making the film, including 4,500 days in the field, dozens of camera crews filming at over 200 locations in 64 countries and 250 days of aerial photography to tell a sweeping story about the planet’s landscapes, seasons and species. Earth combines rare action, unimaginable scale and impossible locations by capturing the most intimate moments of our planet’s wildest and most elusive creatures.

Narrated by James Earl Jones, EARTH, follows three animal families as they lead their young through the first year of life: A male polar bear searches for food beneath melting Arctic ice as his two tiny cubs and their mother emerge from their son den; a mother elephant in Africa’s sun-scorched Kalahari Desert guides her calf through a blinding sandstorm; and a humpback whale and here new calf begin a 4,000 mile journey from the warm waters of the tropics to the find food in Antarctica.

As co-directed by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill, the EARTH provides a sweeping, 90-minute tour of our home planet's biosphere -- spanning every level of gaze, from the epic (crystal-clear shots of the Earth hovering in space) to the hyper-specific (a mother polar bear and her cubs waking from a lengthy period of hibernation). The film almost exclusively emphasizes the behavior of the animal populations that inhabit the Earth, yet carefully omits shots that depict the more gory predatory behavior of species, rendering it family-friendly. It also employs a chronological approach -- beginning in January in the Arctic wilderness, and moving progressively through the four seasons and 12 months comprising a single year, until it hits late December -- contrasting various geographic regions of the Earth as shot in various seasons. Above all else, a cautionary message underscores this footage; as in An Inconvenient Truth, the filmmakers continually remind their audience that despite the grandiloquence present onscreen, all may be lost if humankind is not careful.

Earth is the first film in a new series of films being produced under the Disneynature banner. The Walt Disney Company has pledged to plant a tree for every admission for the film during its first week in theatres in the U.S. Earth, rated G, opens Wednesday,

April 22(Earth Day) at the Drexel Theatre, 2254 E. Main St. For more information including complete showtimes contact the theatre at (614) 231-9512 or visit www.drexel.net. The Drexel is also offering Special School and Group Discount Rates for the film. For more information call the Group Sales Hotline at (614) 239-1612 or visit www.drexel.net.

Free Press screening of EARTH – Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 7:30PM. Mention the Free Press at the door and get in for $6. Contact: Jeff Frank