Guardian chronicles the work of wildlife stewards amid sweeping legislative rollbacks of environmental protections in Canada. Part hermit, part biologist, Guardians live on boats, full-time, in one of the last pristine frontiers of the world to monitor salmon, the backbone of the ecosystem, economy, and culture along British Columbia's coast. But, in an age of science censorship and soaring resource extraction in the form of fracking for oil and natural gas, Guardians and the wildlife they have dedicated their lives to protect are now disappearing.
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
Koyaanisqatsi
1983
7
Five years ago Kisilu, a Kenyan farmer, started to use his camera to capture the life of his family, his village and the damages of climate change. When a violent storm throws him and a Norwegian filmmaker together we see him transform from a father, to a community leader and activist on the global stage.
Thank You for the Rain
2017
8
Travel the globe to experience the vital connection between humans, animals, and our planet through stunning, rarely before seen footage which exposes the effects that deforestation and the illegal trade of threatened and endangered species have on elephants, lions, sharks, orangutans, and more. By caring for these beautiful animals, we begin a healing process that will eventually help us all.
Why on Earth
2022
7
An epic journey along Africa's Great Green Wall — an ambitious vision to grow a wall of trees stretching across the entire continent to fight against increasing drought, desertification and climate change.
The Great Green Wall
2020
6
California’s fight to protect valuable native succulents from an international poaching ring. When suspicious packages are found in a small town in northern California, Game Warden Pat Freeling, gets a tip about the peculiar activity. After further investigation he exposes a vast network of illegal plant poachers. These smugglers ravage the landscape as they rip thousands of the native succulent, Dudleya Farinosa, from their natural habitat. This small unassuming plant carries a hefty bounty on its head internationally, where a single succulent boasts a price tag in the thousands. With the help of volunteers, native plant biologists, and local government, they fight to stop this ecological destruction.
Plant Heist
2021
9
Just one of the many far-reaching impacts of the slave trade on human history is on agriculture and horticulture. While the French plantation owners on the Caribbean island of Martinique had their gardens laid out, Versailles-style, their enslaved workers continued their tradition of using medicinal wild herbs. Nowadays these herbs represent one of several resources through which the people of Martinique counter the health and ecological ravage caused by the use of pesticides on the banana plantations. Farmers are reclaiming uncultivated lands to grow indigenous vegetables, without any industrial pesticides; they fight boldly for simple biodiversity.
Tu crois que la terre est chose morte
2019
7
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.
Forest for the Trees
2021
0
Examines the devastating effect that overfishing has had on the world's fish populations and argues that drastic action must be taken to reverse these trends. Examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation.
The End of the Line
2009
6
The Salton Sea: An inland ocean of massive fish kills, rotting resorts, and 120 degree nights located just minutes from urban Southern California. This film details the rise and fall of the Salton Sea, from its heyday as the "California Riviera" where boaters and Beach Boys mingled in paradise to its present state of decaying, forgotten ecological disaster.
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
2006
7
Observations of birds and other wildlife at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and a Forest in Ithaca, NY.
the lab
2024
0
Live and Let Live is a feature documentary examining our relationship with animals, the history of veganism and the ethical, environmental and health reasons that move people to go vegan.
Live and Let Live
2013
8
Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream. But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge...
The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream
2004
7
Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path to sustainability.
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
2014
7
The remarkable true story of three animal species rescued from the brink of extinction: California’s enchanting Channel Island Fox, China’s fabled Golden Monkey, and the wondrous migrating crabs of Christmas Island. Discover successful, heartfelt, and ingenious human efforts to rescue endangered species around the world.
Back from the Brink: Saved from Extinction
2019
7
Every day, the world over, large amounts of high-level radioactive waste created by nuclear power plants is placed in interim storage, which is vulnerable to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and to societal changes. In Finland the world’s first permanent repository is being hewn out of solid rock – a huge system of underground tunnels - that must last 100,000 years as this is how long the waste remains hazardous.
Into Eternity: A Film for the Future
2010
7
A portrait of environmental folk hero & gay icon Bob Brown, who took green politics to the center of power. His story is interwoven with the life cycle of the ancient trees he's fighting for.
The Giants
2023
7
Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.
Surviving Progress
2011
7
Newly into addiction recovery, an urgent threat emerges to spur filmmaker, Mark Titus back to the Alaskan wilderness - where the people of Bristol Bay and the world's last intact wild salmon runs face devastation if a massive copper mine is constructed.
The Wild
2019
7
After decades of hurricanes and oil spills, Louisiana faces a new threat - hordes of monstrous 20 pound swamp rats. Known as "nutria", these invasive South American rodents breed faster than bounty hunters can "control" them. With their orange teeth and voracious appetite they are eating up the coastal wetlands that protects Thomas and his town of Delacroix Island from hurricanes, but the people who have lived here for generations will not give up without a fight.
Rodents of Unusual Size
2017
7
Interweaves the lives of the threatened monarch butterfly with an indigenous community in Mexico fighting to restore the forest they nearly destroyed.
The Guardians
2018
5