A group that provides a shelter for the homeless and low-income housing strives to create stable jobs for its clients by marketing a line of home-grown specialty food products.

A local Latino organization seeks to steer at-risk youths toward positive social influences, to encourage them to set constructive goals, and to create opportunities for young people through immigration reform.

A Dane County wildlife rehabilitation center that operates on a shoestring works to save hundreds of injured and orphaned animals each year and promote the value of wildlife in human communities.

Each could be helped by greater community awareness and support.

The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison and Working Films, a national nonprofit organization that links film to cutting-edge activism, have joined in a novel approach to secure this help. Tales From Planet Earth, a unique festival Nov. 6-8 in Madison, will harness the power of film to build support for these organizations and their work.

We're calling it a community and film festival because we have partnered with nine Madison area nonprofits directly involved in issues explored by the films. When the lights come up, we want people to take the energy and inspiration of great storytelling and feel empowered to act. And we want to give them real opportunities to take action close to home.

Madison and Wisconsin have long been incubators of new ideas, from the progressive tenets of Fighting Bob La Follette to Aldo Leopold's eloquently conceived "land ethic." We believe Tales From Planet Earth has the potential to become an exciting new model for advancing social and environmental change.

The festival's nearly 50 films -- some beautiful, some disturbing, some downright outrageous -- on a sweep of topics, from migrant labor to food production to human relationships with animals, are guaranteed to provoke thought. Its featured speakers -- green jobs and environmental justice advocate Majora Carter and Native American activist Winona LaDuke -- are sure to inspire. Its community events, ranging from issue discussions to a kids' cooking class at the Dane County Farmers' Market to bird-watching forays on Picnic Point, will provide outlets for local involvement.

Meanwhile, UW-Madison students have worked this semester with our community partners, creating short films and outreach campaigns to advance the needs of these groups and their work. Some have pursued new customers for the specialty food products. Others have shown Latino youths how to tell their personal stories through self-produced films. Others have sought financial contributors for a new educational wildlife pen. The list of organizations and initiatives goes on.

Our goal is to turn a film festival into a fun, inclusive, transformative event that involves people working together to build more equitable, just, and healthy environments. Our success will be measured not only by the size of our audiences but also by the degree to which we transform ideas into action in and around Madison.

We invite all who share these ambitions to join us at Tales From Planet Earth. Admission to all events is free on a first-come, first-served basis. No tickets are required. For a schedule and list of venues, visit TalesFromPlanetEarth.com.

Gregg Mitman is the curator of Tales From Planet Earth and interim director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison. Judith Helfand, a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and co-founder of Working Films, is an environmental filmmaker in residence at the UW-Madison.

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