Before the Flood
Best in Festival 2017
Director: Fisher Stevens
USA, 2016, 95m
Featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Before the Flood presents a riveting account of the dramatic changes occurring around the world due to climate change, as well as the actions we as individuals and as a society can take to prevent catastrophic disruption of life on our planet.
EARTH DAY Program
Brilliant Darkness: Hotaru in the Night
Finalist 2015
Director: Emily Driscoll
USA, 2012, 12m
Brilliant Darkness: Hotaru in the Night explores the importance of darkness, and erosion of it, through the study and preservation of firefly habitats in Japan and the United States. Fireflies disappear as artificial night lights disrupt their ‘languages of light’. Brilliant Darkness: Hotaru in the Night features artists and scientists on different continents working to understand firefly flash patterns and how to live among wildlife in urban settings.
City on the Water
Best WILD in New York Film 2018
Director: Jon Bowermaster
USA, 2017, 18m
When you think of New York City you don’t think of it first as a “city on the water.” But with 520 miles of waterfront — and the fact that you have to take a bridge or tunnel or both to get almost anywhere — it most definitely is. City on the Water is an intimate look at waters that surround the Big Apple and the efforts being made to improve them.
DamNation
Best Environmental Film 2015
Directors: Ben Knight, Travis Rummel
USA, 2014, 87m
This powerful film odyssey across America explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of our rivers. Dam removal has moved beyond the fictional Monkey Wrench Gang to go mainstream. Where obsolete dams come down, rivers bound back to life, giving salmon and other wild fish the right of return to primeval spawning grounds, after decades without access.
Ice Fall: Night Ice Climbing
Finalist 2015
Director: Joseph Areddy
2014, 4m
The Frost Giants of Norse mythology were huge, cold and practically indomitable. At night they taught the people of the North to fear, only to freeze again the next day. In January 2013, extreme sports photographer Thomas Senf headed off for Norway with a team of fearless Mammut ice climbers. The plan was to set the professional athletes against the nocturnal backdrop of the legendary world of the Frost Giants using flares and spotlights. The project produced unique photos, the likes of which the world has never seen before.
#NatureNow with a special behind-the-scenes video!
Sustainable Film Award
Director: Tom Mustill
Producer: Andrea Walji
2019, 5m
#NatureNow is a personal and passionate call to arms from Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot to use nature to heal our broken climate. Made with no flights, recycled footage and zero net carbon.
North of the Sun
Finalist 2014
Directors: Inge Wegge, Jørn Nyseth Ranum
Norway, 2012, 46m
Inge Wegge and Jørn Ranum spend nine months of cold, Norwegian winter in the isolated and uninhabited bay of a remote, arctic island by the coast of Northern-Norway, facing nothing but the vast Atlantic Ocean and some of the worlds finest surfing waves…
Overburden
Best Environmental 2016
Director: Chad A. Stevens
USA, 2015, 65m
When an errant spark ignited the methane leaking in the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, a fireball ripped through miles of underground tunnels in Appalachia’s coal country, killing everything it touched – including 29 men. In the explosion’s aftermath, a right-wing pro-coal activist joins forces with a tree-hugging grandmother to take down the most dangerous coal company in the United States.
Salmon Confidential
Best Environmental Film 2014
Director: Twyla Roscovich
Canada, 2013, 69m
Salmon Confidential is a compelling documentary about the Canadian government’s cover up of what is really killing BC’s wild salmon. When biologist Alexandra Morton discovers British Columbia’s wild salmon are testing positive for dangerous European salmon viruses associated with salmon farming worldwide, a chain of events is set off by government to suppress the findings. Tracking viruses, Morton moves from courtrooms, into British Columbia’s most remote rivers, Vancouver grocery stores and sushi restaurants. The film documents Morton’s journey as she attempts to overcome government and industry roadblocks thrown in her path and works to bring critical information to the public in time to save BC’s wild salmon.
Silas
Best Environmental Film 2019
Director: Anjali Nayar, Hawa Essuman
Canada, 2017, 80m
Liberian activist Silas Siakor is a tireless crusader against illegal logging and corruption. Through this focus on one small country, “Silas” warns of the power of politics, features the role of technology in our rapidly-changing world and highlights the impact one person can make to change the system from the ground up.
Soul of the Elephant
Best Wildlife Film 2016
Directors: Dereck and Beverly Joubert
2015, 53m
Ironically, every dead elephant with its ivory intact is a reason to celebrate. It means an elephant died of natural causes, and a soul was celebrated and mourned by its herd. Award-winning filmmakers, Dereck and Beverly Joubert start with the remains of two bull elephants and through a series of key flashbacks, look at the lives they would have led.
The Age of Consequences
Best Environmental Film 2017
Director: Jared Scott
USA, 2016, 80m
The Hurt Locker meets An Inconvenient Truth, The Age of Consequences investigates the impacts of irreversible climate change, resource scarcity, mass migration, and pandemic conflict through the lens of U.S. national security and global instability.
The Biggest Little Farm
Best in Festival 2020
Director: John Chester
USA, 2019, 93m
The Biggest Little Farm follows two dreamers and their beloved dog when they make a choice that takes them out of their tiny L.A. apartment and into the countryside to build one of the most diverse farms of its kind in complete coexistence with nature.
The Story of Plastic
Best Environmental Film 2020
Director: Deia Schlosberg
USA, 2019, 89m
Depicting a world rapidly becoming overrun with toxic material, THE STORY OF PLASTIC brings into focus an alarming, man-made crisis. Striking footage, original animations, and archival material combine in this timely documentary to point to the disastrous impact of the manufacture and use of plastics, shedding new light on a pressing global challenge that threatens the life expectancy of animals, humans, and Earth itself.
World Television Premiere on Discovery Channel April 22 at 2pm EST
Touch
Official Selection 2015
Directors: Shams, Jibehem & Jean-Baptiste Chandelier
USA, 2014, 5m
Touch is a spectacular tour of Santorini in Greece, the Aiguille di Midi above Chamonix and the Col du Galibier in France by paraglider, Jean-Baptiste Chandelier
Vamizi – Cradle Of Coral
Best Cinematography 2017
Director: Mattias Klum
Sweden, 2016, 52m
Vamizi is the largest island in the Quirimbas Archipelago. Its relative isolation from mainland Mozambique has preserved its natural beauty and wildlife. It has magnificent coral reefs and is a unique breeding ground for whales, dolphins, turtles and sharks. This reef is also the only place in East Africa where “mass spawning” has been observed among corals, which means they are healthy and help other corals, near and far, to reproduce and grow as well as stabilize the ecosystems around it. This fragile realm is however under threat. We follow a team of scientists from around the world who fight to stop the damage before it starts, accompanied by stunning imagery from renowned National Geographic photographer Mattias Klum.