“We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment.” Back in the day, everyone was familiar with Margaret Mead (1901–1978), a cultural anthropologist who stepped into the role of public intellectual and brought the country up to date on latest thought concerning humankind and its cultures. Mead’s specialties were adolescence and sexuality, and her name was made in 1928, with the publication of the hit ethnographic study Coming of Age in Samoa, which wasn’t without controversy. Mead continued to do extensive field work and published many books. She was also a curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1946 to 1969. Hence the Margaret Mead Film Festival. This year’s festival offers nine movies over three days. Here’s a small preview. Time and Water is a eulogy for an Icelandic glacier—a poetic response to the climate crisis. In The Oldest Person in the World, the human subject keeps changing. And Daughters of the Forest follows “two Indigenous mycologists charting new possibilities for ecological coexistence through mushrooms.” As you may know, mushrooms are an exciting new player in the creation of sustainable materials. And their mycelium networks communicate with trees. If that sounds like the premise for a John Cage composition, well, he was a devoted mycologist. —Laura Jacobs