Tuesday a great documentary film played for an audience at the Museum of Contemporary Art. That most of you missed it is in line with the underlying subject of Living Downstream, part biography, part chemical expose, part history lesson and part ode to environmentalist Rachel Carson, author of the groundbreaking 1962 book Silent Spring.

The 80-minute documentary adaptation is built upon a basic question offered by Pekin-area native Sandra Steingraber, a Ph.D. biochemist, who wrote the book of the same name, connecting mountains of already collected scientific data on production and use of chemicals throughout the American economy and their interaction with water systems and human health.

Stiengraber’s pursuit of a connection between the Illinois agricultural chemical industry and her own bladder cancer led to her book, which just hit a second printing.

“With the right to know, comes the duty to inquire,” Steingraber said in her narration of the film.

Over the course of time following the introduction of chemicals into nearly every area of life and industry, most of society missed the slow compounding effects on each individual’s world.

Steingraber seems to hope the rest of Illinois and the country will join her inquiry. With the known conditions of the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers, perhaps Chicagoans will one day benefit from her questions.

Filming in downstate Illinois towns such as Creve Coeur, Congerville, Saybrook, Forrest and Pekin, director Chanda Chevannes pits Illinois’ scenic yet toxic waterways against more famous beautiful and poisoned locations in California and the East Coast.

The film has drawn good critical reviews in the Boston and Toronto film scenes and various environmentalist centers out west.

“I’m thrilled to return with Living Downstream to Illinois, whose landscape suffuses this film with beauty and is the source of my own ecological roots,” says Sandra. “I enjoy describing this loveliness of Illinois to audiences far from my home state, but it’s a special honor to screen the film in communities whose back roads I can still navigate from memory. Most of all, I hope the film emboldens those who are seeking sustainable solutions to Illinois’ many environmental problems. What we love we must protect.”

Between the director’s editing touch and Steingraber’s balanced message, one critically important note must be made. The argument is fair enough to be considered by those it condemns, and the production manages to stay off the worst kind of environmental soapbox associated with most films of the genre.

Contact: gskinner@chicagojournal.com