Review: The Greening of Southie

I wanted to alert folks to what might be the only entertaining film on LEED.

The film The Greening of Southie
http://www.greeningofsouthie.com
is available for purchase for $3 from the itunes store (cheaper than most video rentals),
and for purchase at various prices at $25/$100. It covers the building of Boston's first LEED residential building from bare ground to opening day, and humanizes the story by focusing on a few characters & and building crises.

It also acts as training film on LEED as the filmmakers bring the LEED rating chart to life, point by point.

And it talks about class-- South Boston was notorious for being a outsider-unfriendly, conservative place (themes explored in Good Will Hunting and Mystic River) and the last place a green building would go. The film is honest about the fact that the well-paid union laborers can't afford the condos that start at $400,000 and wonders if the neighborhood Irish pub, The Quiet Man, would survive gentrification (it didn't).

The filmmakers also made the excellent King Corn (available at Orbit DVD), which is a better film, and more hilarious.

The filmmakers have a grant to show the film at union halls around the country next month, and details on that are available on their website.