PBS’s weekly news magazine NOW is taking a trip to Austin this week. The topic is The Unforseen, Laura Dunn’s lyrical, dreamlike doc about Gary Bradley‘s plans to develop over Barton Springs Aquifer. Featuring extensive interviews with Bradley and his cabal, and footage from the legendary 1991 all-night uprising at City Hall which birthed the Save Our Springs movement, the film’s an intriguing document of the swirling, coalescing forces behind development and environmentalism (if frustratingly noncommittal – Dunn tries her best to present Bradley as some venture-funded Icarus who flew too close to the sun, a move which doesn’t entirely succeed).
NOW host David Brancaccio will interview Dunn and show clips from the film, no doubt extrapolating questions about what the rest of the nation can glean from Austin’s environmental movement – a question we still haven’t answered here definitively. NOW airs locally at 7:30pm on Channel 18/cable Channel 9; the entire episode will also be available for streaming after tonight’s broadcast.
This article appears in June 15 • 2007.