Reflections on Nature

The vantage point of Earth from space presents astronauts with the truth of our undeniable interdependency. We see how far we can go and what we can achieve through international cooperation. Only by coming together can we protect the life support systems of Spaceship Earth and overcome the greatest threats to our planet and people.

For many years I’ve been living between urban London and the Tyrolean Alps and with my new project, I wanted to create awareness for our immediate surroundings. With an emptied diary and being limited to more outdoor areas in order to record, we were given the opportunity to stop and consider the world around us. We had various adventurous recording sessions and video shoots: with four percussionists in a frozen lake, with 20 double bass players in a cutdown forest, paragliding with organ pipes and many more.

Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand takes audiences from the deadly 1995 Chicago heat disaster, in which 739 people died, mostly black and in the poorest neighbourhoods of the city — tying it back to the underlying man-made disaster of systemic structural racism. The film highlights the inextricable links between extreme weather, extreme disparity and the politics of disaster.

Ignite Session: Why Intersectionality Matters — A fast-paced event designed to give audiences an exciting introduction to Intersectional Environmentalism and why it’s so crucial to the climate movement.

A grieving mother. A flooded football field. A burdened woman. Three emotional stories set in Nepal show how communities are already being impacted by flooding and drought, all made worse by the injustice of climate change and increasingly extreme weather events.

In East Detroit, Tim Paule and Nicole Lindsey are transforming their community one hive at a time. By working to convert an estimated 90,000 vacant housing lots in their city into urban bee farms, Tim and Nicole are bringing life back to their community

Meet Neidinha and Txai Suruí, mother and daughter activists from the Paiter Suruí people of Rondônia, in the Amazon forest. Txai is the founder of the Indigenous Youth movement in the state and was one of the young women who signed the popular action that sues the government for climate inaction.

This documentary beautifully captures the daily life of the dhīvaraḥ — Sanskrit for a fisherman — of Malpe Harbour, Karnataka, India, as they face the impacts of overfishing. Former Fishermen’s Association President Satish Kundar talks about the joy as well as the difficulties of traditional, small-scale fishermen, like himself.

Designers use fashion to preserve traditional Basotho culture and challenge common perceptions of Africa. Profiling a variety of these innovators, this film encourages us to take lessons from those who rethink, reuse, and reinvent in order to promote positive change.

Meet 34-year-old Durga Rawal, the only mountain guide of any gender from her village in northern Nepal. An inspiring story of a woman forging her own path.

Academy Award®-nominee Fernando Meirelles (City of God) and Malian musician Inna Modja take us on an epic journey to the frontline of the climate crisis along Africa's ambitious Great Green Wall.

A new model of conservation is emerging. It is one that values the role of local communities and reconciles protecting biodiversity with the use and management of resources. In the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacán, communities play a vital role in conservation efforts and several have been recognised with awards for their work.

This short film highlights the hope and tenacity of the young activists of Wilmington, California as they push the Los Angeles City Council to prohibit new and existing oil and gas drilling operations within 2,500 feet of homes, schools and hospitals.

Four Black millennial stand-up comedians, hailing from Virginia Beach, Atlanta, Chicago, and Ohio, take the stage to “make the climate crisis funny” in front of a St. Paul’s audience who are at risk for a Hurricane Katrina-like disaster and who are currently being displaced from their homes.

During August 2018 the Indian state of Kerala experienced the worst floods in that region for nearly 100 years. Almost one year since then here is Shaji talking about life as a fisherman on the Kerala backwaters, what happened during the floods and some of the problems he, his family and their community now face.

Across the Pacific, many places that we call home endure a perpetual state of climate emergency. In spite of this, we draw strength and resilience from our indigenous knowledge and traditions to fight back against the climate crisis.

On the Fenceline: A Fight for Clean Air follows a South Philadelphia community as they mobilize to shut down all operations of the east coast’s largest oil refinery.

The Sacrifice Zone exposes one of the most toxic neighborhoods in America and celebrates the people who are fighting for a just and sustainable future.

As humans threaten to overwhelm nature and environment, it is important to take a beat and reassess the impact of our actions. The documentary is a step in the same direction by engaging with a crucial concern that needs to be discussed more in the urban space. be overcome and achieved.

Against a backdrop of extreme poverty, personal loss and a marine environment changing beyond her control, Kokoly lives on a knife edge. Kokoly follows a traditional Vezo fisherwoman Madame Kokoly – as she reflects on her life experiences and carries out her daily routine in and around the coastal waters of southwest Madagascar. This film features female-only voices from one of Africa's most remote regions.

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.

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.

Possible World is a painted animation inspired by interviews conducted with over 100 everyday individuals across Ethiopia. In a series of beautiful and dynamic scenes, Wube brings to life his subjects’ dreams for a regenerative world, starting with existing practices that benefit both communities and the environment. Wube presents this collective vision to audiences around the world as a model for our shared future.

Identity loss is spreading throughout indigenous populations due to each country's development by way of hydroelectric constructions, skyscrapers, roads and deforestation. Communities are left without protection, with their cultures and traditions being killed along the way

Stingray Sisters is a dramatic real-life documentary set in a remote Indigenous community. For the first time, this eye-opening film will give audiences unparalleled access to life in an Australian Indigenous community, through the lens of three contemporary sisters. Noni, Alice and Grace are navigating their twenties while moving, as they always have, between two cultures and two homes.

On the banks of Louisiana, fierce Indigenous women are ready to fight—to stop the corporate blacksnake and preserve their way of life. They are risking everything to protect Mother Earth from the predatory fossil fuel companies that seek to poison it

We tell the story of a small but special regional town in during Australia's 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfire season. We highlight the importance of community – everyday people doing extraordinary things to help our community survive and recover. And we show our town's path to recovery. How we in Braidwood in New South Wales, faced our greatest existential threat, being surrounded by fire.

In the near future, the climate crisis reaches an irreversible point. A nun and a priest meet to talk about the disappearance of insects.

Brazil’s African slave descendants, the Quilombola, have fought a long and hard struggle for recognition. After the abolition of the slave trade they were left abandoned and ostracised, devoid of rights and outside of Brazilian mainstream society. But things are slowly changing amongst rural communities and they have been actively building a way to secure land tenure on the sites where many have lived for generations.

Facing a hydroelectric dam development in their territory, the Kichwa communities of Santa Clara fight back. 'Piatua Resists' follows the grassroots struggle and legal process to defend the Piatúa river by the indigenous Kichwa communities of Santa Clara, Pastaza in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Coast Land is a Guyanese documentary that speaks to the vulnerability of the country's coastal region which is the home to the majority of the population. It examines the effects of rising sea levels and cyclical erosion which results in massive overtopping and disruption of livelihoods.

The Dry Years is documentary short film that shows the lives of Matilde and Mario, a couple of goat farmers who live in the remote central valley area of Petorca, Chile. After a series of long droughts, their access to water is increasingly uncertain.

Corazón Del Mundo is an important message of the Indigenous Elder Mamo Rumaldo Lozano Gil guardian of the sacred site TEYUNA (The Lost City) in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, is a message about the root of our climate crisis and an invitation to take care of the trees, water, quartz, and gold

One day before the Chilean National Referendum gives each voter the possibility to approve or reject the drafting of a New Constitution, Oscar and Marcelo, two brothers with opposite views, will share a trip along the desert coast of the country. Suspicious of Marcelo’s reckless involvement in the protests against the local coal plants, Oscar is constantly confronting his brother’s position as an environmentalist.

Jail is the reward for Momonus and Jamaludin to defend their ancestral lands. For 12 years already these Semunying indigenous territories have been controlled by P.T. In Ledo Lestari. Their dense forest had been turned into a palm oil plantation landscape. Although they have been persecuted and abused in their ancestral land, their fight is not extinguished.

In a series of animations created by IIED and partners, the experiences of climate activists from Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Solomon Islands are brought to life. Each animation gives us insights into what motivated them to tell their story on loss and damage, and share their hopes that they will drive action.

In a series of animations created by IIED and partners, the experiences of climate activists from Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Solomon Islands are brought to life. Each animation gives us insights into what motivated them to tell their story on loss and damage, and share their hopes that they will drive action.

In a series of animations created by IIED and partners, the experiences of climate activists from Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Solomon Islands are brought to life. Each animation gives us insights into what motivated them to tell their story on loss and damage, and share their hopes that they will drive action.

Konkola Copper Mine – a subsidiary of the UK-based mining giant Vedanta – has been polluting the main water source of surrounding villages in Chingola, in Zambia’s Copperbelt Province, and leaving a trail of human rights and environmental abuses for nearly two decades.

“Footsteps in the Wind” is an animated short film to Sting’s song “Inshallah". Based on the harsh and intense reality of refugees around the world, this film broaches a narrative told through the eyes of children that never give up on their dreams.

Runner and advocate Faith E. Briggs is running 150 miles through three U.S. National Monuments that lay in the thick of the controversy around public lands. Accompanied by running companions who represent diverse perspectives in what it means to be a public land owner, she assesses what is at stake if previously protected lands are reduced and if the public is largely unaware.

Joep van Dijk is a passionate climate scientist. He likes to search for extreme examples that show how life can be lived sustainably. This documentary follows Joep on his CO2-neutral journey from Amsterdam to the United States of America and shows how this choice inspires himself and others to live a climate conscious life.

By observing 'the human' in a traditional 'nature-documentary style' and by showing how we get our daily food, questions are being raised about mankinds relation to nature.

Warrior Women is the story of Madonna Thunder Hawk, one such AIM leader who shaped a kindred group of activists' children - including her daughter Marcy - into the "We Will Remember" Survival School as a Native alternative to government-run education. Together, Madonna and Marcy fought for Native rights in an environment that made them more comrades than mother-daughter.

Gather is an intimate portrait of the growing movement amongst Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide.

Latin for the word Blacks, Negros is an experimental social justice film depicting the young black male experience in modern-day Miami. The story follows James, 14, as he overcomes a series of traumas in order to make a difference in his neighbourhood and rediscover adolescent joy. An ultimately uplifting story about healing, hope and the power of community in Liberty City, the film perfectly highlights why environmental justice is racial justice.

A mosquito bite decades ago leads Catherine Coleman Flowers on her life’s journey. This captivating film brings viewers into the world of Catherine Coleman Flowers, a Lowndes County, Alabama activist who became passionate about the environment when she found out that tropical diseases, like hookworm, were showing up in her community because of sewage treatment problems.

Ordinary people in New York are asked to talk about their lives and their hopes for the future in a time marked by political division and climate change.

Joaquin Fargas create natural ecosystems isolated inside sealed containers that only allow the external influence of heat and light. These systems, like our planet, depend on light as a source of energy for the development and continued existence of the life cycles that take place inside of them. These orbs represent our planet on a miniature scale, highlighting its fragility and the care its inhabitants should be taking

The Facemask tells a cautionary tale of how our consumer habits and means of preventing further spread of disease can ultimately do more harm than good. When a distracted office worker bunglingly takes off her facemask to take a phone call, the elusive mask takes on a life of its own, soaring through the skies, across the countryside, eventually landing on a beach where it threatens to end up in the water.

An individual who is suffering from the obsessive-compulsive disorder and forced to migrate to outer space, he misses his mother and homeland. However, the only response to his calling his mother is an endless busy tone.

An indigenous philosopher, social leader and singer songwriter, composes a new song about his tumultuous life after 15 years of silence. But this time he will do it with his family, so the memories and interpretations are contradictory and painful. Uncle Yim is an immersion in the identity of a peculiar family shaped by tradition, music and communality.

The dance film links interrelated histories of racism and colonial capitalism in Virginia and Puerto Rico. The film honors the spirit of resistance and liberation of Black female tobacco stemmers who worked in segregated facilities in Richmond and invokes Puerto Rican tobacco factory readers and radical activists Dominga de La Cruz Becerril and Luisa Capetillo, as inspiration for the present.

A Short Film About Ice is 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.

Four years in the making, this short film brings imagery from the archives of the National Land Survey of Iceland together with intimate footage of six outlet glaciers in the Hornafjörður region of Southeast Iceland to tell the breathtaking story of a rapidly disappearing frozen world

A diminishing water supply is driving people from their land in a remote region of Nepal. The younger generation of the Gurung family adapts by commuting from their ancestral home, where subsistence depends on grazing goats and cows, to a village that has a commercial apple orchard, fed by irrigation.

In a version of Kolkata, India rendered unliveable by sea level rise, things take a dark turn when a family of climate change refugees are ambushed by a tiger on the flooded streets.

Maharashtra was hit by a three year long man-made drought that led to community-wide despair. And while climate change was a catalyst, it was not the only reason behind the mass suicides.

Natari, which translates to “anchor of the boat” in the Sindhi language, tells the story of the potential conflict caused by climate migration and its impact on local communities and families such as that of the fisherman and political activist Ayoub, in the Indus Delta region.

Voice Above Water is the story of a 90-year-old Balinese fisherman who can no longer fish because of the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean, instead he collects trash in hopes of being able to fish again. A reminder that if we all play our part we can accomplish something much greater than ourselves.

A 19 year-old woman, Yassandra Barrios emerges as the environmental leader of her island. She learns to dive, studies Marine Biology, rallies the fishermen and young people to bring awareness to protecting their marine ecosystem. She inspires those around her with a vision of a more secure future for their island home.

We the Power follows friends, families and visionaries, as they break down legislative barriers, take power back from big energy companies, put it in the hands of locals, and share the benefits to strengthen their towns.

Nearly 40% of the World's kelp forests are in decline, unlike more iconic ecosystems, this decline is going largely unnoticed. This short film shows us why it’s important to view our oceans with the same wonder and mystique as our rainforests, deserts and mountains, and why we need to find new ways of telling stories about them, creating powerful cultural connections which drive support for conservation.

In a search for a united path forward on climate policy through a shared love of the outdoors, iconic snowboarder and environmentalist Jeremy Jones takes us on a journey to engage climate deniers, consider the future of clean air, clean water and a healthy planet, and search for common ground in the mountains — one voter at a time.

Thinkers, activists and urbanists take our audience through a range of provocations, ideas, and solutions for future city-living — tackling issues such as racial justice, access to green space, pollution, transport, energy and general happiness. The climate crisis gives us the opportunity to reimagine our urban spaces for the better, creating desirable and sustainable communties in a just and equitable way.

Pass the Mic: Voices of the Sea — Spotlighting the artistic voices of Pasifika peoples. A collective of poets, artists and activists each perform a piece reflecting on their culture, relationship with the sea & the land, and the challenges and injustices imposed by climate change.

Ignite Session: Business for Good— A fast paced event designed to give audiences a rundown of the exciting innovations in business practice and ethics, leading the way in doing well by doing good.

Join Amali Tower (Founder & Executive Director, Climate Refugees) and Mayesha Alam, Ph.D. (Senior Fellow, United Nations University Centre for Policy Research) as they unpack the complex issue of climate migration and point us towards the solutions.

Highlighting the fight against fracking, mining and Big Oil Australia-wide, with a focus on the Beetaloo Basin. We’ll explore what these extractivist practices means for the communities affected and the implications on a national, international and planetary scale.

Spotlight: Women’s Rally — An inspiring event spotlighting women leadership in the environmental, social justice and gender-equality movement. highlighting the importance of feminist climate solutions.

Tuvalu, the fourth-smallest country in the world by area, is a delicate ribbon of land in the Pacific Ocean whose inhabitants’ lives have long been intertwined with the sea. With climate change, however, that sea might swallow their homeland; climate models predict the island’s current children may be the last native Tuvaluans. This short but striking film follows the activists working to change that fate. Their rally cry? “We are not drowning, we are fighting.”

VAKA is a short documentary about the energy and resilience of the Tokelauan people as they weave their customary-wisdom regarding the environment with modern eco-technologies to respond to climate change. Tokelau was the first nation to aim for 100% of its electricity to be generated from solar as a result of the New Zealand funded Tokelau Renewable Energy Project in 2012.

Climate activists will tell their inspiring and empowering stories of climate action, highlighting young people across the globe who are creating a global movement for climate justice, intersectional solutions and a positive vision for the future.

Gain an insight into the exciting economic solutions to the climate crisis and how economic action could not only avert a climate catastrophe but also be a force for good in so many other areas of our society, collective mindset, and politics.

‘Girls for Future’ follows four girls, aged between 11 and 14 years, from Senegal, Indonesia, Australia and India who fight for a better future. All are directly affected by the consequences of environmental destruction: Senegal stands for the global water crisis, Indonesia for plastic waste pollution, India for the agricultural crisis and in Australia we witness the fatal destruction in the oceans and on land through climate change

In November 2020, two hurricanes tore the community of Haulover in two. Now, villagers must decide between going back and rebuilding their home from the rubble despite the risks, or they must start a new life elsewhere, leaving their life by the sea.

Amidst the 1970s native rights movement, George Helm, a Hawaiian activist and musician must gain the support of kūpuna (community elders) from Maui to aid in the fight of protecting the precious neighboring island of Kahoʻolawe from military bombing.

From The Wild Sea is a poetic documentary film that zooms in on the complex collision between human and nature. We are taken on a disturbing and fascinating journey into the emerging Anthropocene Era, seen from both the human and animal perspective.

70/30 portrays the creation of one of the world's most ambitious climate laws, with the goal of reducing Denmark's CO2 emissions by 70% by 2030. But will the politicians, citizens and industry be able to come together to make Denmark a green pioneer? Or will the election promises and green ambitions crumble when the new climate law is faced with reality?

A powerful contemplation on the effects a typhoon leaves on a seaside city in the Philippines. A girl weaves in myths and the memory of her grandmother to try to understand how people cope with devastation and trauma.

A young Indigenous boy imagines his future while listening to the sounds of a seashell. An Indigenous man recalls his past listening to the same shell.