Flocks of more than one billion passenger pigeons used to darken the skies, for days. By 1900, a 14-year-old boy had shot the last one. This film is a thoughtful and sometimes humorous look both at the stories of five birds driven to extinction, and at sculptor Todd McGrain’s project to memorialize them. From the swamps of Florida to the rocky coast of Newfoundland, and even here on Martha’s Vineyard, his memorials stand where the birds were last seen in the wild—a testament to what we have lost and a reminder to preserve what we have left.

Discussion with film subject Todd McGrain to follow

Official Selection International Festival of Films on Art Montreal 2012

Co-presented by the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary