Forest for the Trees

Award-winning war photographer Rita Leistner goes back to her roots as a tree planter in the wilderness of British Columbia, offering an inside take on the grueling, sometimes fun and always life-changing experience of restoring Canada’s forests. Leistner, who has photographed some of the world’s most dangerous places, credits the challenge of tree-planting for her physical and mental endurance. In Forest for the Trees, her first feature film, she revisits her past to share the lessons she learned. The film introduces us to everyday life on the “cut-block” and the brave souls who fight through rough terrains and work endless hours to bring our forests to life. The rugged BC landscape comes to life magically in Leistner’s photography, while the quirky characters and nuggets of wisdom shared around the campfire tell a sincere story of community.

Fairy Creek

In Fairy Creek, director Jen Muranetz documents the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, creating a searing portrait of contemporary environmental activism, bearing witness to the lengths activists are willing to take to protect British Columbia’s last old growth forests.

Zāģeri

They fell trees in the forest, work in brigades and live in trailers or empty apartments far from home. The work is heavy. During moments of respite, the loggers like to sit on the stumps and talk about life. And about women – those waiting at home, or those they imagine.

Traktory jedou do lesa

Documentary film about the use of tractors in Czechoslovak forestry. It shows a forest tractor felling trees, loading logs, hauling and grubbing.

Zelená stráž

Kůrovec

Havumetsän lapset

Once Upon a Time in a Forest is a film about brave young people who are defending one of the last coniferous forest areas in Europe. It is a morality play and a love story of a younger generation whose main object of love is the Finnish forest. This cinematic documentary explores environmental feelings and witnesses how the 22-year old protagonist Ida grows up to be the leader of the new Forest Movement.

Škůdci listnatých lesů

Škůdci jehličnatých lesů

Silvicola

The human impact on forests is explored through breathtaking vistas and poignant vignettes set in Canada's Pacific Northwest. Those who rely on this precious resource highlight the tensions and dilemmas between commodification and conservation.

Butterfly

Living in an ancient redwood tree for more than two years to prevent the tree from being clear-cut, Julia Butterfly Hill captured our hearts and minds by showing us that one person can make a difference. Through interviews with Hill, filmmaker Doug Wolens paints a portrait of an intensely spiritual and articulate woman who encountered both beauty and horror (she was assaulted by lumber company helicopters at one point) during her time above ground.

Christian Kjærs sidste vilje

Groenkijkers

"Wer hat dich, du schöner Wald…" oder Wie ein Film verhindert wurde

The film reports on the massive forest damage in the Ore Mountains on the Czech-German border and the desperate struggle of foresters and residents to save this landscape. Hope, doubt and an ever-increasing ecological catastrophe are pitted against a blind and deaf doctrinaire state power that denies the facts.

Christmas in the Rockies

Katie Jolly is a driven young woman with aspirations to leave her small town of Homewood and the family business behind for a career in New York City. Katie’s dreams come to a halt when her father’s sudden injury leaves the future of the company on her shoulders. Saddled with Jolly Lumber’s looming financial troubles, she must also navigate the complexities of love and family as well as the pressure to win the annual Lumberjack Competition.

A Thousand Pines

In this tale of labor and family that shines a light on the precarity of temporary work visas, Raymundo Morales leads a crew of workers who have to make the challenging decision to leave their families in rural Mexico to plant commercial pine forests in the United States.

Peaks to Prairie: A Holistic Regenerative Approach

How can we harness the power of mushrooms to fight climate change? In the American West, wildfires spread fast. To slow the flames, forest managers are thinning the forests. Cutting down trees. 
But where does all that wood go? Nearby on the agricultural prairie, soils sit degraded from generations of traditional farming. The soil lacks the organic matter they need to thrive. Could these two challenges provide solutions to each other—
with a little help from Mother Nature? Peaks to Prairie is a short film about nature-based climate solutions and how mushrooms can play a key role.

Stamp of Character

Discover the "character" of one of Missouri's oldest tie and lumber operations through this archival black-and-white film that documents one of the last railroad tie drives on the Black River made by the T.J. Moss Tie Company of St. Louis in the 1920s. Thanks to release of the film by the Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation, the rare footage in "Stamp of Character" takes us through the entire process of making railroad ties, at a time when forests covered almost two-thirds of the state. The original silent motion picture was shown in movie theaters as an advertisement by the T.J. Moss Tie Company. Using digitally edited narration and realistic sound effects, this video makes the past live again.

Treetop Daredevils

A documentary exploring the tartan wearing lives of lumberjacks in the 1950's.

Au royaume du Saguenay

Saguenay and Lac-Saint-Jean: history, economy, tourist attractions, agriculture, wood and paper industry, and especially the gigantic aluminum industry whose products are found in all parts of the world; images of a blueberry field, the Lac Bouchette sanctuary, a religious gathering, a dam, a power plant, the Arvida plant, angling, Cap Éternité, construction canoes, etc.