This pass allows you to view all 55 films on ALT EFF's 2022 program for free. Select a film to view the synopsis and details below

Aya is growing up with her mother on the island of Lahou. Joyful and carefree, she enjoys picking coconuts and sleeping on the sand. However, her paradise is doomed to disappear under the water. As the waves threaten her house, Aya makes a decision : the sea-level may rise, she won’t leave her island.

Winner: Best International Feature Film. Aya is growing up with her mother on the island of Lahou. Joyful and carefree, she enjoys picking coconuts and sleeping on the sand. However, her paradise is doomed to disappear under the water. As the waves threaten her house, Aya makes a decision : the sea-level may rise, she won’t leave her island.

Set in a fake grocery store stocked with thousands of products made from discarded single use plastic, The Plastic Bag Store begins to transform into an elaborate puppet play set in the ancient past the present day and the far off future and explores how the overabundance of plastic waste we leave behind might be misinterpreted by future generations.

The Plastic Bag Store

A darkly comedic, sometimes tender story of how the overabundance of plastic waste we leave behind might be misinterpreted by future generations.

“Villagers have a saying that the dead come back to visit the living. Now those of us who remain have only these ghosts for company.”
Semla, is a ghost village in the Himalayan foothills.The 50 families that once lived in the village, have migrated to the city, leaving behind 7 people. With this migration, livelihood connected to the terrain and seasons have slowly faded.
Like her village, Leela is old, resilient and forgotten. Despite loneliness and struggles with an aging body, Leela doesn’t want to leave for the city. Golu is the only young person in the village. She is desperate to escape to the city but doesn’t have the means. Dreaming for a different life, Golu roams around the abandoned village.
As the film progresses, the two women face the invisible but palpable forces of migration. Their emotional journey changes their relationship with the place they call “Home”. 
As time crawls by, a way of life struggles to stay relevant. In this fragile existence, ‘Ek Tha Gaon’ explores life in a dying village where a haunting absence lingers.

Ek Tha Gaon

In the Himalayan foothills, an 80- year- old woman and a 19-year-old girl are two of the seven remaining inhabitants of an abandoned village. The two women struggle with the choice to leave for an alienating city life or continue living in a lonely village.

A film-poem documenting the journey of a cinematographer through the fragile landscapes of the Arctic.
The camera bears witness to the shapes and colours of glaciers, tundra, mountains and sea ice while the filmmaker explores the role of the human and the artist in such landscapes in the time of the Anthropocene.
Touching on themes of aesthetics, cultural responsibility, inter-connectivity and eco-anxiety the film aims to provoke discussion about the need to re-conceptualise how we make and disseminate images, in order to see ourselves as an integral part of the world rather than seeing ourselves as in front of or separate to nature.

A Short Film About Ice

A film-poem documenting the journey of a cinematographer through the fragile landscapes of the Arctic.

The Forest Rights Act (FRA), for the first time in 2006, granted tribal communities the right of settlement in forest areas. Till then, they were “encroachers”. Sixteen years after a historic law was formulated to give forest dwellers legal ownership of their traditional land, their fate still hangs in the balance. The forests of India are home to 8 per cent of the country's population and they are the keepers of traditional knowledge and forest conservation practices.
This film explores the power of community conservation and decentralised governance in Gunduribari, a tribal village in the Nayagarh district of Orissa, India.

Thengapalli

Gunduribari is a tribal village nestled in the forests of the Nayagarh district of Orissa. Harassed by the timber mafia for teak for decades, the women of the village decide to take matters into their own hands to save their forests.

Set on the backdrop of a seemingly unassuming dispute between the citizens of three small villages in Eastern Slovakia and a big American oil company, we observe how the voice of an individual transforms from a droll yelp to a fundamental attitude towards life. The earth is full of treasures, yet everyone sees values in something else. For the locals, true wealth lies in simple cohabitation with the earth, for investors it lies hundreds of meters below it. The locals are bound by the desire to protect their sanctuary, the investors want to drill for oil. What will the outcome of this clash be and who will reap what?

The Golden Land

The Sun shines, ice melts
A polar bear on its own
A child cries out ah!
The haiku poem you read above is the core of the "Scream For Ice". And the narrative form of "Scream For Ice" is based on the traditional Japanese art of poetry, Haiku.

Scream For Ice

The Sun shines, ice melts. A polar bear on its own. A child cries out ah!

A chorus of voices calls out from the Marañon canyon, in protest against two planned mega-dams. What would the consequences be of interrupting this ancient, vital connection between the Andes and the Amazon? The dams would flood villages, unique forests and rock paintings yet to be studied. Communities and activist groups have come together to ensure that the Marañon river continues to flow freely.

The Roar of The Marañon

The Marañón River is threatened, and a wave of opposition raises its voice.

Trickster environmental activists pretending to be oil behemoth Total stage a satirical press conference to introduce "RéHabitat," a plan to rescue animals from the East African Oil Pipeline by relocating them to “more sustainable” habitats in France. Using humor and mischief, they expose a deadly ecological and humanitarian disaster in a zany effort to help #StopEACOP.

Total Disaster

Trickster environmental activists pretending to be oil behemoth Total stage a satirical press conference to introduce "RéHabitat," a plan to rescue animals from the East African Oil Pipeline by relocating them to “more sustainable” habitats in France.

A pair of Banded Dotterels (New Zealand Plovers) attempt to defy the odds to raise their chicks on a surprisingly hostile New Zealand beach, as their self-appointed guardian Ailsa watches on. Can the vulnerable Nest 38 survive or will the pressure be too much?

Nest 38

A pair of Banded Dotterels (New Zealand Plovers) attempt to defy the odds to raise their chicks on a surprisingly hostile New Zealand beach.

Deg Rai Mata oran is one of Rajasthan's largest sacred groves, protected by the surrounding villagers through a traditional code of conduct. A local guardian tells us how the lives of oran’s people and its biodiversity are intrinsically linked and why the new changes to the landscape brought about by power lines and turbines could be detrimental to this sacred oasis and its practices of coexistence.

A Sacred Oasis at the Cusp of Change

Orans of Rajasthan: A Sacred Oasis at the Cusp of Change

As whispering trees pass on stories of gods and ancestors, various inhabitants of a small indigenous village in the Western Ghats speak. Gradually, a story unfolds that encompasses all of humanity and its symbiotic relationship to nature. Woods turns out to form a bridge between present and past.

Murmurs of the Jungle(Aadigunjan)

In India’s Western Ghats, a tale older than time itself is unfolding as a grandmother imparts the ancient ways of their village to her young grandson.

Film is about an optimistic farmer who doesn't want to migrate to the city like others even though there is a drought in the village. 
The Farmer's son also has his own aims and desires about life. He knows that his father is not able to afford home expenses, so how could he fulfill my desire? So he tried himself to complete his desire, He used his own knowledge which he learnt from the environment around him to complete his aim as well as come out from drought situation.
This is a story of a farmer and his son who continue to fight with drought with some innovative ideas; we couldn't come to a conclusion that it's a solution.

Ankur

One should have to fight against any bad situation.

A rare Marsican bear family wanders down from the Italian Apennines to the charming village of Villalago, in search of food in the local orchards. For most people this would be a cause for concern, but for the residents of Villalago it is a rather different situation.
The film tells the story of the determination of one woman to understand these bears, and gives an important lesson of the fragility of our connection with nature.

My Neighbour is a Bear

A rare Marsican bear family wanders down from the Italian Apennines to the charming village of Villalago, in search of food in the local orchards

Based on the ancient animistic beliefs and shamanic rituals in Mongolia and Siberia, an exploration of the indigenous worldview and wisdom. Against the backdrop of the modern existential crisis and the human-induced rapid environmental change, there is a necessity to reclaim the ideas of animism for planetary health and non-human materialities.

The Fourfold

Based on the ancient animistic beliefs and shamanic rituals in Mongolia and Siberia, an exploration of the indigenous worldview and wisdom.

Actually Environmental issues such as drought and haze have always been a concern of mine. I have come to this conclusion that if we do nothing to counter these problems, the situation will get worse and we will grow unable to fix it. And I think we must protect nature. In my film I wanted to express my concern.
I hope you enjoy watching my movie.

Haboob

A man and his daughter are used to living in harmony and peace with nature, but some disruptions change their lovely little life.

“ACROSS emptiness” is the story of an authentic Dolomitic crossing made by a group of splitboarders and ski mountaineers into the alpine void created by the closure of the ski resorts during the winter of 20/21 after the impact of the pandemic.
A journey capable of creating the background for a comparison between the emptiness of wild areas and the emptiness left by highly anthropized ones. An opportunity to question the future of alpine valleys, the ski monoculture and the fundamental role of the outdoor community in environmental activism.

ACROSS emptiness

An adventure through an almost imaginary alpine dimension to discover the different meanings of emptiness.

The Democratic Republic of Congo could feed almost 1 in 2 people on Earth.
Yet one in six Congolese people suffer from hunger.
Yet one in two Congolese suffers from acute malnutrition.
Yet agriculture accounts for 70% of the population there.
Faced with this paradox, the peasants regroup in agricultural cooperatives. A handful of them share their daily lives with us, that of all those they represent.
Even if they don't know each other, live thousands of hundreds of kilometers from each other, participate in different agricultural sectors, their voices resonate in this powerful, sensitive and sincere documentary.

Amuka

Amuka is a journey into the present day of Congo, depicting the resilience, the courage and the hope of congolese farmers against poverty and starvation.

The steaming cooling towers of coal power plants are both beautiful and frightening. They are everywhere on our planet, but the people living in their shadows we rarely get to meet. In this film they tell us about the most important things in their lives, about what is closest to their hearts. Shot in front of these massive symbols for the big question of our times, the testimonies create a subtle and moving drama.

By the power plant ( Röster om vår tid)

Thoughts about life close to power plants.

Rala (Foxtail millet) is integral in the lives of the natives of central India, evident by its
presence in their rituals, myths, legends and ballads; it’s fascinating that these stories
even hint at the disappearance of Rala from the farm fields, diet and the people’s psyche.
Oscillating between the ballads and the present times, The Bird, the Priest and The
Sixteen Millet Thieves tells the story of grains and farm fields, rains and pests, market and
diet, following the life cycle of Rala and the dwindling cultivation practice of this
indigenous crop.

Chidiya, Pujara aur Solah Rala Chor (The Bird, the Priest and the Sixteen Millet Thieves)

A documentary about the dwindling cultivation practice of Foxtail millet and its associated folklore in the indigenous communities of Central India.

Climate Exodus tells the tragedy of three women who have lost everything due to climate change and now emigrate to start a new life. Lobuin struggles every day to get the last water reserve with which to survive in Turkana (Kenya) where it does not rain anymore. Nazma lost his harvest in Ghoramara (India) due to rising sea levels. His lands have been barren by salinity. Tornadoes and violent hurricanes hit the island of San Martín (Caribbean) with greater frequency, where Vanesa has lost her house while her neighbors have lost their lives.

Climate Exodus

After having lost all because of climate change, three women from different countries and continents- Kenia (Africa), India (Asia) and the Caribbean (America)- have to migrate to start a new life.

“Colonies in Conflict” is a feature length documentary that examines the state of wild bees in a fast-developing Indian landscape. In a first ever, migratory honeybees Apis dorsata (Rockbees) – native to south Asia – have been filmed extensively over various landscapes. Alarmed by reports warning about an insect apocalypse, filmmaker Rajani Mani is concerned about the way in India honeybee hives are often sprayed with pesticides exterminating the entire colony. And thus begins her journey of exploration – learning about India's wild bees and what is killing them. The film asks the critical question, if in the future these wild bees disappear entirely what would it mean to the farmer, the forest, and to the future generations of humans? The filmmaker discovers that we have very less time to reverse the catastrophe we started, but every species stopped from extinction would help hedge our bets in an uncertain future.

Colonies in Conflict

Concerned about pollinator decline, a filmmaker follows, for the first time ever, migratory giant Asian honeybees to uncover how human progress is driving native bee species to the point of no return.

They are among the rarest animals in the world: lynxes, European minks, swamp turtles and ground squirrels. They all once disappeared from Germany. In an attempt to rewild Germanys nature, they are now returning. The film follows their individual journeys back to the wild. For those who are now reclaiming their old habitat, it is a long and dangerous road.

Coming Home - Back to the wild

Join four animals on their brave yourney to reconquer their once lost home.

Discover Wonder: The Octopus Garden is a remarkable, mind-expanding adventure that journeys with a team of scientists from the decks of high-tech exploration vessels, to the dark and uncharted depths of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Their mission: to collect crucial data from one of the rarest and deepest fertile octopus brooding colonies on the planet.
Remarkable encounters with otherworldly marine life that inhabit the most extreme and fragile environments imaginable is a reminder of how much of the ocean remains unexplored and a cue for us to ensure the wonders of the deep are protected.

Discover Wonder: The Octopus Garden

Journey from the decks of a high-tech exploration vessel into the uncharted depths of Monterey National Marine Sanctuary and witness the discovery of one of the rarest and deepest fertile octopus brooding colonies on the planet.

Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuary lies on the tip of Great Nicobar Island, the southernmost island of Andaman and Nicobar archipelago. Isolated from the mainland, four species of turtles nest along its pristine coast, including the world’s largest, the leatherback. However, in January 2021 the protected status of the sanctuary was canceled for the construction of a transshipment port. 
The leatherbacks have built nests here for millions of years. If the development of the port goes through, will the turtles return?

Galathea Bay: Will the World's Largest Sea Turtle Return to Nest in India?

In the farmland of England, a search and rescue mission is underway. A team is working to excavate land haunted by ghosts… but these are not ordinary ghosts… they are ghost ponds. Norfolk used to have a record number of ponds, but modern-day farming is burying England’s wetlands at an exponential rate. With a looming biodiversity crisis, a grassroots movement is reviving farmland ponds as an unexpected last hope to protect freshwater wildlife.

Ghost Ponds

A grassroots movement seeks to reverse biodiversity loss by recovering a lost feature of the landscape... ghost ponds.

Green Nettle is a project that produces sustainable eco-material from large stinging nettles grown on the beautiful slopes of Mount Kenya. It brings livelihoods to local farmers and at the same time contributes to the fight against climate change. It rethinks sustainable fashion, producing lovely soft fabric and gives us a vision of how we enjoy the planet without destroying it.

Green Nettle

Green Nettle is a project that produces sustainable eco-material from large stinging nettles grown on the beautiful slopes of Mount Kenya.

Finnish female scientist Hannele Korhonen gets the opportunity of a lifetime – trying to
create rain in the desert of the United Arab Emirates. The chance to get proper funding and do good sounds amazing, but Hannele learns that the financiers’ have their own agenda. Her enthusiasm morphs into an ethical dilemma. If she succeeds: Whose clouds will she be stealing and what is the ultimate price of her ambition?

How To Kill A Cloud

HER CHALLENGE I S TO MAKE IT RAIN IN THE DESERT. HER AMBITION HAS A PRICE.

An ancient forest houses a secret world of children in which myths and
dreams are whispered. As the forest is threatened, so is their imagination.

I'm Yet to See the Mountain

Will the forest only appear in our dreams?

When Perween Rahman is murdered, her sister Aquila returns to Karachi, Pakistan to investigate. Finding herself caught up in powerful forces stealing the city’s water, her sister exposed the impact of corruption. Based on a true story of one activist who worked tirelessly to protect the rights of Pakistan’s poor.

Into Dust

The extraordinary true story of Perween Rahman, a woman who worked tirelessly to protect the rights of Pakistan’s poor, who paid the ultimate price.

The film showcases one of the successful restoration stories of Lantana Management and Grassland Development in Laldhang Grassland (Jhirna Zone) of Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand. It talks about grasslands as the lifeline of the forest ecology, its importance to balance the precious wilderness of the protected area such as Corbett Tiger Reserve and the scientific methods being used for the revival of Laldhang grassland. This film is a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Uttarakhand Forest Department, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Dusty Foot Productions (DFP).

Lantana Management & Grassland Development

The film showcases one of the successful restoration stories of Lantana Management and Grassland Development in Laldhang Grassland (Jhirna Zone) of Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand.

MOZAMBIQUE, where the mango tree used to be centers around the effects of climate change on small communities in rural and remote areas of Mozambique. The film showcases the daily life of two local families over the period of 48 hours, an inside view of what it means to be affected by the unpredictability of weather extremes at the lowest end of the world ́ s economic pyramid. Each family suffered from the impact of unusually severe droughts and floods over the past years. Their plight and coping mechanisms constitute the narrative of the film. We strictly follow our protagonists in questioning why their life in compliance with their surrounding has changed: Is God or the white man to blame for nature ́s whims?

MOZAMBIQUE, where the mango tree used to be

MOZAMBIQUE, where the mango tree used to be centers around the effects of climate change on small communities in rural and remote areas of Mozambique.

In the southwest of Madagascar, the Mahafaly plateau is an extremely arid land. Here, the rains fall only a few times a year. In these very difficult living conditions, the inhabitants of the small village of Ampotaka found a unique solution to store water.

Mamody, the last baobab digger

In the southwest of Madagascar, the inhabitants of the small village of Ampotaka found a unique solution to store water.

The Delhi National Capital Region is famous for being a crowded and polluted city — one of the most rapidly developing urban areas in the world. In the middle of this concrete jungle, hundreds of bird species have found little pockets to raise their young, or to stop by on their winter migrations. It's not an easy survival — construction is wiping out wetlands and scrub forests. And yet, many birds are making it work. Neighbird, The Documentary, explores the unexpected lives of birds in urban spaces.

Neighbird: A Documentary on Urban Wildlife

Finding nature in the most unexpected places.

Women of Northern Kenya navigate the opportunities and challenges of a massive oil discovery; as the promises fail to materialize they must face the complicated web that stands in their way: greed, politics and the patriarchal fabric of their world.

Oil and Water

Women of Northern Kenya mobilize against land exproriation

Planktonium is a short film about the unseen world of living microscopic plankton. It is a voyage into a secret universe, inhabited by alien-like creatures. These stunningly beautiful, very diverse and numerous organisms are unknown to most of us because they are invisible to the naked eye. However, they are wandering beneath the surface of all waters around us and they are of vital importance for all life on earth.
Jan van IJken filmed the plankton through his microscopes, revealing the beauty and delicate structures of the minute organisms in the finest detail. The film is without any voice-over or explanation.
Renowned Norwegian artist Jana Winderen made a sound composition for the film. She is recording audio environments and creatures which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally – deep under water, inside ice or in frequency ranges inaudible to the human ear.
Phytoplankton (small plant-like cells) are producing half of all oxygen on earth by photosynthesis, like plants and trees do on land. Zooplankton are forming the base of the food chain of aquatic life. Plankton are also playing an important part in the global carbon cycle. The plankton are threatened by climate change, global warming and acidification of the oceans.

Planktonium

Planktonium is a short film about the secret universe of living microscopic plankton, invisible to the naked eye.

It is a film about the rat-hole coal miners who risk their lives to earn a livelihood. While doing this activity, many mishaps go unreported, which we cannot see from the outside. Their lives are devastating enough that they are called thieves in their own house, and during a case of mine collapse, they cannot even shed a tear or claim their loved ones’ body.
This film narrates their daily life.

Rat Trap

A film on the rat-hole miners risking their lives for livelihood

During the turbulent period of the Bodo Mass Movement for demanding Bodoland, the rich tapestry of Manas National Park reached its lowest point with the highest numbers of loss of wildlife and large-scale habitat destruction. Amidst this, how a NGO, Manas Maozigendri Ecotourism Society, became the catalyst of change for the park and its people, along with many others to bring Manas back from the brink.

Revival of Manas

Manas Maozigendri Ecotourism Society reviving the Manas National Park in Assam.

58,000 lives are lost due to snakebite in India every year. However, there is a lack of robust data available on snakebites in Northeast India. Through the voices of victims and their families, doctors and scientists, this film is an exploration of the snakebite situation, and of possible solutions for mitigation and management of snakebite in the Northeast.

Snakes & Snakebite in the Northeast

An exploration of the snakebite situation in Northeast India, and of possible solutions for mitigation and management.

Spirit of the Forest tells the story of a little girl from a village in south India, who stumbles upon a very special place on her way home from school –– a ‘sacred grove’, a pocket of the forest largely untouched by human hands thanks to centuries-old folk practices of protecting natural habitats.
This particular sacred grove happens to be a ‘Myristica swamp’, a freshwater ecosystem named after a wild nutmeg tree, uniquely found in this corner of the world. When the girl picks up a nutmeg seed amongst gnarly knee roots on the swamp floor, she disturbs the spirit of the forest. What follows is an adventure that illuminates the origins of this ancient swampland: from the formation of the Western Ghats at the break up of Gondwanaland, through her ancestral history, and up to the present day. 
The flora and fauna featured in this film are accurate to the habitat, while the roots of this ecological fairy tale are derived from contemporary scientific research. The film aims to weave together all these elements—plants, animals, people, spirituality, culture, art and science—into a beautiful web of life.

Spirit of the Forest

A little girl stumbles into a sacred grove near her village in south India, awakening the spirit of the forest, who takes her on a journey illuminating the origins of this ancient swamp—from Gondwanaland to the present day.

The film explores the culture of entomophagy in Nagaland. It takes you to a village called Logwesunyu where the locals collect migrating stink bugs for food. The film makes an attempt to make aware, of the benefits of entomophagy.

Stink Bug - Edible Insects of Nagaland

The film explores the culture of entomophagy in Nagaland, India.

Ever since the 1980s and 1990s, a time when logging in Borneo was some of the most intensive the world has ever seen, multiple companies received concessions from the government came, and came to Sungai Utik bearing money, but the elders and community at that time rejected them and demonstrated saying “we do not care about money, what we want is a richness of nature” and because of that the customary territory of Sungai Utik to this day is still covered in tall trees, the rivers still clear, and food source still plentiful.
After decades of struggle the Dayak Iban community of Sungai Utik finally received formal recognition for their customary forest, with a Decree from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Indonesia. Finally with this the community now have full rights to manage their customary forest according to their local wisdoms and traditions.
This is the story that will be told in the film, how the community first came to inhabit their customary territory, their fight to protect it from logging and other threats, their fight to receive legal recognition from the government, and the very meaning of the customary forest for the community.

Sungai Utik - The Fight for Recognition

A story of a customary community, that for decades have fought to protect their forest from logging and their fight for legal recognition.

Bhargavi and Chelmala Srinivasulu have been called the bat woman and bat man of India. The researchers, both at Osmania University in Hyderabad, say the title suits them. Their work takes them to roosting sites in places from historical buildings and temples to illegal granite mines and subterranean caves—where they carefully observe, collect and biopsy bats. Their chiropteran-infused love has guided their passion for finding, studying and protecting endangered bats around India. And it is what launched them on a strange and at times dangerous journey to find a bat that had not been seen in nearly three decades.

The Bat Man and Woman of India

Researchers Bhargavi and Chelmala Srinivasulu have been called the Bat Woman and Bat Man of India. Their chiropteran-infused love has guided their passion for finding, studying and helping protect bat species all over India. Now these researchers are on a mission to save India’s critically endangered bats together.

A journey into the weird, wonderful and truly astonishing lives of the small yet mighty creatures who keep the world turning – beetles. 
They have been successful for millions of years, yet they’re in serious trouble; what does the future hold for these incredibly important animals, and for us if they disappear?

The Caretakers

Beetles are some of the most important animals on the planet - they're worth saving, but what happens if they disappear?

Los Guardianes del Maíz/ The Keepers of Corn
A documentary directed by Gustavo Vazquez
Duration: 60 minutes Synopsis
The 2021 Red Nation International Film Festival
Best Documentary Feature Film Winner
For thousands of years, native farmers in the Mexican state of Oaxaca have kept alive a system of seed exchanges that, like oral almanacs, have brought the collective knowledge of traditional milpa farming methods into the Twenty-first Century.
One such seed exchange takes place in the town of Ejido Unión Zapata, in whose province lie the caves of Guila Naquitz. Today the caves are catalogued as a World Cultural Heritage Center by UNESCO, whose website describes them as containing, “the earliest known evidence of domesticated plants in the continent, while corn cob fragments from the same cave are said to be the earliest documented evidence for the domestication of maize. “
The seed exchange at Ejido Unión Zapata is host to over 500 indigenous farmers and their families who come from every region in Oaxaca. The system predates the arrival of the Europeans and to this day, no money changes hands. The only currency tendered here is genetic diversity and good advice. It was at Ejido Unión Zapata that the idea for our documentary, Los Guardianes del Maíz, The Keepers of Corn, 2020 was born.
To fully understand the importance of preserving the over sixty varieties of native corn in Mexico and the genetic diversity of the hundreds of eco-system-specific strains cultivated in Oaxaca, we needed to trace some of the farmers back to their fields and communities in the far flung Mixteca, Zapotec and Chinantla regions of the state.
It is hoped that this work serves as a testament to both the fragility and tenaciousness of traditional farming cultures, whose way of life is challenged daily by the incursion of fast-food, soft drinks and a growing ecological catastrophe caused by the increasing use of herbicides. We are honored and grateful to have been invited into these communities and hope that our work provokes a dialog between them and others like them, even in other countries.
We learned along the way that coalitions between budget-strapped, yet dedicated, government scientists, activists, chefs and the farmers themselves actually do happen and that together they can work in defense of the great genetic diversity and cultural treasure that native corn represents.

The Keepers of Corn

Los Guardianes del Maíz/ Keepers of the Corn (director Gustavo Vazquez) presents the story of native corn told by the indigenous farmers, artisans and cooks in Mexico whose ancestors shepherded the ever-evolving seeds from the dawn of agriculture into the 21st Century – a story of collective labor spanning more than 350 generations. Their voices are joined by community leaders, scientists, chefs, and others whose knowledge and activism stand not only in defense of food sovereignty and the genetic integrity, diversity, and community ownership of native seeds, but in defense of a durable cultural legacy and a way of life. In Spanish, Zapotec and Chinantec with English subtitles (Vazquez & Barbieri, 2020, 60 min.).

THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS unfolds the healing qualities of fungi and their ability to regenerate. This personal journey takes us on a walk alongside parasites, symbionts and
decomposers offering ideas of both interconnectedness and collaboration. Driven by a vision of resistance, the encounters seek possibilities of renewal and question what connects us when the world seems to be falling apart. With mushrooms and their allies the film invites to imagine a myco-cultural (r)evolution. What if the fungus could help us address and radically change our relationship to this world?

The Mushroom Speaks

THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS traces possible alliances with the fungal reign. As if in an uprising of spores, the en- counters of the f lm explore the theme of renewal, and question what connects us when the world seems to be falling apart.

In her colorful sari and large scarlet bindi, Dr. Vandana Shiva is an arresting presence: She galvanizes crowds, advises government leaders, fields constant calls from the media—then retreats from big-city buzz to work alongside small farmers across the developing world.
Who is she? What is her mission? How did this woman from an obscure town in India become Monsanto’s worst nightmare: a rebellious rock star in the global debate about who feeds the world?
Among those engaged with organic food and farming, climate change, biodiversity, seed sovereignty, globalization, and social justice, Vandana Shiva is an icon of a global movement.
But even among those who pride themselves on being well-informed, she’s relatively unknown. Few are aware of how this daughter of a Himalayan forest conservator rose from obscurity to become a world leader of Gandhian stature.
Hers is the remarkable and unlikely story of a girl who trekked from highland cabin to cabin alongside her father, tended a garden alongside her mother, and passionately pursued an education that freed her from the caste and gender constraints of traditional Indian society that culminated in a degree in Nuclear Physics, and then a Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Quantum Theory.
But those achievements were merely a prelude to her awakening as a fully-committed activist.
Vandana Shiva brought her scientific expertise and Gandhian principles of nonviolent resistance to the struggles of poor Indian villagers whose livelihoods were being crushed by corporate capitalism. She has become a formidable opponent to those corporations whose drive for privatization and profit are destroying the environment and changing the climate. Their predations in the name of a ‘green revolution’ with its promises of wealth and freedom and ‘feeding the world’ through patented and chemically-dependent GMO seeds are reducing traditional farmers and entire communities to inescapable servitude. In India, the fruits of the Green Revolution have been an epidemic of rural suicides.
The Seeds of Vandana Shiva focuses on the people, circumstances and seminal events in Vandana’s life—what shaped her thinking and defined her purpose. It also shows how the battle against multinational agribusiness has become an international struggle between two visions for feeding the world: The first, a multinational corporate model of chemically dependent monoculture that rewards a capitalist imperative of profit and growth. And the other, ‘Earth Democracy, that honors ecology, biodiversity, sustainability and community—what Dr. Shiva demonstrates is the only way forward for the future of food.

The Seeds of Vandana Shiva

The eco-activist life story of Dr. Vandana Shiva

The Trees With Orange Rings tells the story of a great gray owl family in the Bridger Mountains of Montana whose habitat is threatened by a logging project. A beautiful, old-growth Douglas fir forest marked by the U.S. Forest Service with orange rings painted around trees provides a backdrop to this tale of passion, natural history and environmental issues.

The Trees With Orange Rings

This is a story of a tribal couple coping with the loss of their daughter in the Uranium Mining area in the state of Jharkhand, India. The story also highlights how deeply tribal groups are connected to the forest, their culture and each other. This film has captured vivid colours of their festivals, togetherness and folk songs that bind them to their culture. While capturing different seasons in Jharkhand, the drastic change in environment is also noticeable.

Tortoise Under The Earth (Dharti Latar Re Horo)

This is a story of a tribal couple coping with the loss of their daughter in the Uranium Mining area in the state of Jharkhand, India.

In a small rural village, a young boy befriends Fernand and Andrée, a farmer couple who,
at 80 years old, find themselves at trouble feeding their remaining livestock. The boy
doubles his efforts to helps them but can't avoid the inevitable : they are forced to take the
terrible decision to first give up their donkey, than their cherished cows, sold to the
livestock-market.

When the swallows fly away

In a small rural village, a young boy befriends Fernand and Andrée, a farm er couple who, at 80 years old, find themselves at trouble feeding their remaining livestock.

Wild You Were Sleeping is a new documentary series that shines a spotlight on species, habitats and ecosystems that are an integral part of our country, but unfortunately have not received the public attention and funding they need for their survival. Episode 5 of this short format documentary series highlights the Hoolock Gibbons that are found in non contagious forests of Assam; taking viewers on a journey to uncover the veil surrounding their survival and the irreplaceable habitats they call home.

Wild You Were Sleeping

A journey into the life of the Hoolock Gibbons

In this look into a fantastical world, watch as a young Pipidee attempts to find his true love.

Wonders of the World

An animated nature documentary focused around a small creature trying to find love

At the end of the winter, Flaminio, a resistant shepherd, prepares materially and spiritually for the arrival of the spring through daily rituals, using the tools he built for himself: he moves and sows the ground, shears the sheep and makes a woolen suit for the new season. The communities of the valley chase the winter away with cowbells and bonfires through the ritual of Scasada dol Zenerù, which is inserted into the story of the shepherd’s life as a dreamlike element that draws on an ancestral memory. Flaminio’s sensitivity, strongly connected to Nature, allows him to perceive when it is time to call the community to act, starting the ritual.

Zenerù

The poetic relationship, between the ancient ritual of Zenerù and the life of the hermit Flaminio, makes us reflect on the border between domestic and wild, between known and unknown.

Crossed by greed, two hundred and seventy-two people were buried in toxic mud from the Vale mining company in Brumadinho (MG), Brazil in 2019. The emptiness that now crosses those who try to carry on will never be filled. This tribute film is dedicated to the victims of the irresponsible mining tragedy that continues to take its toll with blood and devastation

[Emptiness crossing us]

Two hundred and seventy-two people were buried in toxic mud from the Vale mining company in Brumadinho (MG), Brazil in 2019. Emptiness now crosses the way of those who try to carry on without their beloved ones.

India

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