Private Project

Jens Jensen The Living Green

Jens Jensen The Living Green dramatizes the rise of an immigrant street sweeper to become one of the nation’s first champions of eco-justice, Jens Jensen,(1854-1951). Jensen’s life illuminates issues of urban development and “park deserts,” the now-popular use of native plants and our need to connect with “the living green” of nature within the city. With associates Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan and Dwight Perkins, Jensen took the vast prairie for inspiration and invented the Prairie Style of landscape architecture to bring the prairie to Chicago’s working poor. Jensen is now an important model for green activism, he led the battle to save the dunes of Indiana from becoming a giant steel mill (now a national park), saved parks all over the Midwest, designed landscapes for the titans of industry (amongst them: Ford, Insull, Florsheim, Coonley, Rosenwald), and influenced his fellow Wisconsinites Aldo Leopold and John Muir.

  • Carey Lundin
    Director
    Citizen Kate
  • Mark Frazel
    Writer
  • Carey Lundin
    Producer
    Citizen Kate
  • Mark Frazel
    Producer
    Citizen Kate
  • Jens Jensen
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    Environmental
  • Runtime:
    54 hours
  • Production Budget:
    250,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    HDCAM, 16mm, Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • http://www.jensjensenthelivinggreen.org/awards
Distribution Information
  • Amazon
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: Internet
  • PBS
    Country: United States
    Rights: Free TV
Director Biography - Carey Lundin

Carey Lundin is well known for her ability to produce both comedy and drama, from hard-hitting political spots to emotional public service, to mockumentary webisodes to television programs. Currently Lundin is the director and co-producer of "Jens Jensen The Living Green", a feature documentary for PBS about the irascible Prairie Style landscape architect and the Midwest’s first great conservationist.

For a decade she was the creative director of Adelstein & Associates, a democratic political media firm where she directed hundreds of campaign spots winning the firm multiple Pollie, Telly and Omni Awards. Her greatest achievement was an eight year public service campaign for organ donation that helped Illinois reach the highest donor registry in the country that was lauded as the nation’s most effective organ donor PSA campaign.

Having always wanted to experience the presidential campaign trail, Lundin made her mark with her mockumentary web series, "Citizen Kate," that made international news and was dubbed “the future of political journalism” when her butter bust was presented to Obama two days before the crucial Iowa caucus. Kate, a total outsider to politics and reporting, and a fake character, was a media darling whose webisodes garnered over 2M views.

Lundin's work has been profiled in The Chicago Tribune, NY Times, LA Weekly, LA Times, Washington Post, The Center for Humans and Nature, Chicago Sun Times, WBEZ, WTTW's Chicago Tonight, The Economist, Fox News, Prezvid, Politics Anyone, TV Week, Garden Design Magazine and Traditional Home.

Lundin has produced television shows since the late 1980s when she field produced PBS educational series and "Unsolved Mysteries" starring Robert Stack; for Epiphany Pictures she produced "Phenomenon: The Lost Archives," starring Dean Stockwell; she won Accolade and Ada awards as the Supervising Producer ABCs "Treasure Hunters Roadshow"; and recently she produced "America’s Best Bites," a travel/food series for WGN.

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Director Statement

This film changed my life, I became a public speaker and environmental activist advocating for bringing nature to our most park poor neighborhoods. Now I'm finishing a short film about Chicago's Little Village, one of the most park poor in the nation, and how a tiny nature park can change lives.