** This event will feature two films from the Canopy Stories anthology. **

Every tree has a story. They tell the stories of families, of neighborhoods, of transformations long forgotten. Tree stories are community stories.

Rosa’s Tree by David Hedberg
Portland’s first Heritage Tree, an American elm, represents every tree in the city. Only a few mighty oaks and firs that survived Stumptown’s pioneer days are older. This elm, planted in the 1870s by Rosa F. Burrell, stands as one of the city’s oldest features. The film explores one historian’s quest to find and document this and other historic trees.

Palm Portland by Kia Anne Geraths
People tend to associate palm trees with vacation or the heavily lined streets of California or Las Vegas. Yet Palm Trees make quite a few appearances in the gray, rainy city of Portland, Oregon. While considered by many to be a horticultural paradise that can handle a wide variety of plant species, including Palms, many find their presence a disturbance in PDX.

Canopy Stories is NW Documentary’s first anthology film project, featuring 12 stories made by 11 Portland filmmakers. Each film focuses on a specific tree to tell a story. The stories range from activists camping in trees to strangers caring for the ghosts of pioneers, from globe trekking botanists in search of rare specimens to everyday citizens transforming their neighborhood into an urban oasis.

Read about each individual film in this anthology at canopystoriesfilm.com