"Kaiulani becomes Rachel Carson; we are transfixed...

Carson lives in this film.
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The emotional weight of her courage holds urgency for us today."

-Haskell Wexler

When pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring" in 1962, the backlash from her critics thrust her into the center of a political maelstrom. Despite her private persona, her convictions about the risks posed by chemical pesticides forced her into the role of controversial public figure.Using many of Miss Carson's own words, actress Kaiulani Lee embodies this extraordinary woman in a documentary style film which depicts Carson in the final year of her life. Struggling with cancer, Carson recounts with both humor and anger the attacks by the chemical industry, the government and the press as she focuses her limited energy to get her message to Congress and the American people.

Beautifully shot in HD by Academy Award®-winning cinematographer, Haskell Wexler, at Carson's cottage in Maine, the film is an intimate and poignant portrait of Carson's life as she emerges as America's most successful advocate for the natural world. Based on Kaiulani Lee's popular play of the same name.

This DVD includes many bonus features including LESSONS FROM CARSON, a 28-minute film directed by Ian Cheney (King Corn and The Greening of Southie), in which contemporary environmental leaders reflect on Carson's life and the challenges ahead -- featuring geneticist and "Nature of Things" host, Dr. David Suzuki; leading expert on the health effects of pollution Dr. Theo Colborn; "Last Child in the Woods" author, Richard Louv; the Center for Food Safety's Andrew Kimbrell; Jay Feldman of Beyond Pesticides; and NRDC co-founder and Dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Gus Speth.

Order the DVD
For Home Viewing
Academic or Institutional Screenings
and Streaming at Bullfrog 
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​Kaiulani also tours with the film conducting q&a sessions following the screenings. 
For booking and inquiries, please contact Davis/Spylios Management.

THE CREATIVE TEAM

Christopher Monger
Director

is a Welsh screenwriter, director and editor, best known for writing and directing The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain and writing the HBO biopic Temple Grandin. He has directed eight feature films and written over thirty screenplays.

Haskell Wexler
Director of Photography

Two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler was adjudged one of the ten most influential cinematographers in movie history, according to an International Cinematographers Guild survey of its membership. He won his Oscars in both black & white and color, for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (1966) and Bound for Glory(1976) (1976). He also shot much of Days of Heaven (1978) (1978), for which credited director of photography Nestor Almendros -- who was losing his eye-sight, won a Best Cinematography Oscar that Wexler feels should have been jointly shared by both. In 1993, Wexler was awarded a Lifetime Achivement award by the cinematographer's guild, the American Society of Cinematographers. He received five Oscar nominations for his cinematography, in total, plus one Emmy Award in a career that has spanned six decades. Now 86 years old, Wexler was active as recently as 2007.

In addition to his masterful cinematography, Wexler directed the seminal late Sixties filmMedium Cool (1969) and has directed and/or shot many documentaries that display his progressive political views. He was the subject of a 2004 documentary shot by his sonMark Wexler, Tell Them Who You Are (2004).​

Kaiulani Lee
as Rachel Carson

Kaiulani Lee has more than forty years of experience in theater, film and television. Ms. Lee has starred in over a dozen plays on and Off- Broadway. She has been nominated for the Drama Desk Award on Broadway and has won the Obie Award for “Outstanding Off-Broadway Achievement.” 

For a full bio, visit About Kaiulani.