FREE | Registration Required

Join us for the Community Impact Film Series event focused on Animal Welfare. This free community program brings together film, dialogue, and community resources to educate, engage, and empower attendees. The event will include a film screening, a panel discussion featuring community leaders and subject-matter experts, and a resource fair connecting participants with local organizations and service opportunities.

What to Expect:

• 10:00–10:30 AM: Resource Fair
• 10:30–10:40 AM: Opening Remarks
• 10:40 AM–10:50 AM:  Short Film: My Duduś (8.35min.)
• 10:55–12:55 PM: Feature Film: Listers (120min.)
• 1:00–1:40 PM: Panel Discussion
• 1:45–2:30 PM: Resource Fair

 

About the Films:

Opening Short Film: My Duduś 

A Polish mother grieves when her only child leaves their home in the suburbs of Chicago to study in Poland. While her son is away, she finds a baby squirrel in her backyard and forges a unique and powerful bond with the animal, raising him as if he were her own child.

Director + Cinematography + Photography – Tom Krawczyk

Feature Film: Listers

Two brothers set off on an unusually feathered adventure: a year living out of a van, chasing birds across the country in pursuit of a Big Year birdwatching contest, because nothing says sibling bonding like arguing over whether that was a warbler or definitely, maybe, 100 percent a sparrow.

Listers is a documentary that follows devoted birdwatchers known as “listers,” who travel widely in their ongoing mission to spot and record as many bird species as possible. Equal parts road film and quiet obsession, it offers an intimate look at the discipline, humor, and deep focus that shape the birding community.

As the miles add up and the checklists grow longer, the film reveals that birdwatching is more than a competition. It is a way of seeing the world with patience, precision, and delight. Beneath the binoculars and rivalry is something unexpectedly tender: a lifelong practice of attention, where every sighting becomes both a score and a moment of connection with the natural world and, occasionally, with your very competitive sibling in a very small van.

Meet the Moderator: Juli Emmons

With more than 20 years of experience in the film industry and a lifelong passion for storytelling, Juli is dedicated to using the power of film to highlight the beauty and importance of wildlife, with a special affection for squirrels.

As a co-founder of Nutty By Nature Squirrel Rescue, she combines her love of animals, community service, and storytelling to advocate for wildlife conservation and rehabilitation. This role represents a natural and meaningful extension of her lifelong commitment to making a positive impact through education, compassion, and creative engagement.

Meet the Panelists:

 Katherine Rigby, born in Hendersonville, NC, spent her weekends at her grandmother’s house, playing outdoors and learning about the wildlife around her—except for the mosquitoes, which seemed to like her a little too much! Her interest in nature and animals led her to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology and eventually into the world of research.

Katherine has explored topics in microbiology, botany, developmental biology, and cell biology. Her career eventually led her to translational research, where she conducted experimental drug combination studies for patients with multiple myeloma. After eight years in research, she shifted her focus to clinical research compliance, supporting Phase I clinical trials involving brain, head and neck, and solid tumors. Today, Katherine is honored to serve as the Regulatory Consultant for the ARISE Cancer Consortium™, the first children’s cancer consortium in the Carolinas. The consortium’s mission is to develop research protocols that improve the lives of children with sarcomas.

Outside of work, Katherine finds joy in volunteering with wildlife rescues, where she developed a special bond with rehabilitating squirrels—one of the most common animals around us, yet vastly misunderstood.

Eden Isbell was genetically predisposed to be a birder (or “twitcher” as they say in the UK), given her mother’s love for beauty and birds and her father’s love for nature.  Originally from Columbia, SC, Eden spent her formative adult years in New England, where she probably encountered many amazing bird species yet unbeknownst to her as she cantered and jumped her way through conservation land on her noble steed Toby.  Well after her equestrian days, Eden moved to a neighborhood on the Catawba River and reconnected with birds her mother pointed out to her in her youth–among them her “spark bird,” the Great Blue Heron.  While not a lister, she now enjoys birding both domestically and internationally and takes her camera with her wherever she goes.  A career HR executive, Eden lives in Charlotte with her three indoor cats and serves as Vice President of the Mecklenburg Audubon Society. 

Christian Ayers: Some find their hobbies, for others, their hobbies find them. Christian began birding reluctantly, having resolved to spend as much of his free time fishing, hiking and skiing as possible. But when the fish weren’t biting, the birds were there to steal his interest. Once he discovered the little joys that bird watching offers: flashes of color, immense diversity of song, habit and habitat, and the serenity of the wild places birds call home, he was hooked. Now Christian splits his free time birding and keeping nest boxes for the Prothonotary Warblers at Cowans Ford. In his spare time he practices law. He lives in East Charlotte with two future birders, his lovely wife and daughter. 

 

Alex Kastanas Holladay is a true Charlottean born and raised, resident of East Charlotte for 10+ years and a resident of Windsor Park since 2020. Alex is playfully referred to as our “Trap Queen” for leading our TNR efforts and is often spotted out around the neighborhood in her reflective vest with her humane trap and some stinky sardines in tow. She is TNR certified by the Neighborhood Cats organization and hopes to expand our trapping program far and wide to serve our community cat population in East CLT!

 

 

 

Resource Fair Participants:

• Cold Blooded & Bizarre
• Wildlife Wonderland
• Windsor Kittens
• Carolina Raptor Center
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Care & Control
• East Side Animal Hospital

 

Food to Enjoy:

• Dulce Dreams Cafe (food truck)
• Coffee provided by Giddy Goat Coffee

 

Thank you to our promotional partners Nutty by Nature, and Windsor Kittens.

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Made possible through the generosity of Kathryn & Luke Kissam.