GREENE – About 1000 BC, a culture developed and flourished for 1,500 years in the region of South Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. Today, descendants of the ancient Maya still populate this region.

Farmers, cowboys and Mennonites are all part of a new film, “Beneath the Jungle and Beyond,” by wildlife filmmaker Dale Johnson, to be shown Thursday and Friday, April 2-3, at Sawyer Memorial.

Johnson traveled throughout Central America, living for a time with the Choco Indians in lower Panama in the jungles near the Columbian border.

He worked on TV specials which aired on CBS and ABC networks. He directed and filmed the outdoor TV series, “The Lone Star Sportsman; and spent five years at NASA working on many films during the Skylab era.

While in Alaska, he produced TV commercials and sponsored award-winning films and documentaries. His most recently completed films have been a widescreen production for the National Forest Service, which won a Gold Medal at the New York International Film Festival, and a National Geographic special about wolves in Yellowstone National Park.

“Beneath the Jungle and Beyond” will be shown at 2 p.m. April 2, and at 2 and 7 p.m. April 3. Sawyer Memorial is at 371 Sawyer Road. For more information, call 946-5311.

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