Written on Water: A Modern Tale of a Dry West (2016)

Koyaanisqatsi

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.

An Inconvenient Truth

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

Older, Stronger, Wiser

In this short documentary, five black women talk about their lives in rural and urban Canada between the 1920s and 1950s. What emerges is a unique history of Canada’s black people and the legacy of their community elders. Produced by the NFB’s iconic Studio D.

Sacro GRA

After the India of Varanasi’s boatmen, the American desert of the dropouts, and the Mexico of the killers of drugtrade, Gianfranco Rosi has decided to tell the tale of a part of his own country, roaming and filming for over two years in a minivan on Rome’s giant ring road—the Grande Raccordo Anulare, or GRA—to discover the invisible worlds and possible futures harbored in this area of constant turmoil. Elusive characters and fleeting apparitions emerge from the background of the winding zone: a nobleman from the Piemonte region and his college student daughter sharing a one-room efficiency in a modern apartment building along the GRA.

Grain Elevator

This documentary short is a visual portrait of “Prairie Sentinels,” the vertical grain elevators that once dotted the Canadian Prairies. Surveying an old diesel elevator’s day-to-day operations, this film is a simple, honest vignette on the distinctive wooden structures that would eventually become a symbol of the Prairie provinces.

Suzy & The Simple Man

SUZY & THE SIMPLE MAN is an environmental love story about sustainability and the cycle of life. Eight years in the making, this intimate, funny and uplifting film features Suzy and her adventurer husband Jon Muir who live a simple life off the grid — growing organic fruit and vegetables and caring for their chooks and sheep. But the simple life is never as easy as it seems. When all seems perfect something changes their world and life takes an unexpected turn. With bravery and conviction Suzy and Jon confront perhaps their greatest challenge yet, and consider taking the road less travelled. SUZY & THE SIMPLE MAN is a modest story with big questions at its heart: our relationship to each other, to nature and to other creatures, the care of the planet and ourselves, and confronting our own mortality.

Tomorrow

Climate is changing. Instead of showing all the worst that can happen, this documentary focuses on the people suggesting solutions and their actions.

Garden in the Sea

Jardín en el Mar is the story of an exceptional project. Several years ago, a group of enthusiastic and committed people started to work for the protection of the Islands in the Sea of Cortez in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Thanks to this effort all the Islands became a UNESCO world heritage side, but the story of Espíritu Santo island is especially remarkable. It was bought back from different owners and donated to the people of Mexico for its conservation in perpetuity. To celebrate the success of all the efforts and to remind people of our close relation to the ocean, renowned Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias was asked to make a piece of art for the Island. Cristina decided to create a "Garden in the Sea", a labyrinth-like setting of various screens sunk into the sea, that nature will grow over, generating marine life.

Arise

A film that captures the portraits and stories of extraordinary women around the world who are coming together to heal the injustices against the earth, weaves together poetry, music, art, and stunning scenery to create a hopeful and collective story that inspires us to work for the earth. The list of impassioned, indefatigable female environmental activists featured in this film includes Winona LaDuke, a Native American who has championed the use of solar and wind power on reservations; Theo Colborn, head of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, who fights against toxic chemicals in our water supplies; Beverly Grant, who’s created a vibrant farmer’s market in a black neighborhood of Denver, Colo.; Dana Miller, who spearheads an “urban agriculture movement” in the same city; and Vandana Shiva, who champions organic farming in India.

Dounreay: The Atomic Dream

Documentary telling the story of the rise and fall of a daring experiment into atomic energy as the history of the Dounreay fast reactor is charted by the pioneers involved.

When Glaciers Go

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. “We cannot give up cultivating our fields,” a elderly man explains. “The apple farm is not going to be able to feed us easily.” The older generation believes that water shortages stem from road building and bulldozing, upsetting the natural order, a young man explains. Both generations fly prayer flags, beseeching water.

Drowning in Plastic

Liz Bonnin is setting out on a global mission to reveal the full scale of the world’s plastic problem – and explore ways in which this looming environmental disaster might be averted. As she chases plastic around the world, Liz is going to show us that this is a crisis far greater than we’d ever imagined…

Another Side of the Forest

Developments in the Canadian forestry industry during the 1970s are shown being carried out both as lab experiments and in the field to protect and conserve the country's vast forests. These include turning a Newfoundland bog into woodland, fostering British Columbia seedlings that withstand mechanical planting, inoculating Ontario elms against the bark beetle, devising ways of controlling fire, and more.

Food, Inc.

Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner examines how mammoth corporations have taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from the farms where our food is grown to the chain restaurants and supermarkets where it's sold. Narrated by author and activist Eric Schlosser, the film features interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits, commentary from food experts like Michael Pollan and unsettling footage shot inside large-scale animal processing plants.

Salmon

Transformed into a salmon, an Indigenous street artist travels through decayed urban landscapes to the forests of long ago, in this sublime mixed animation.

ciao Aracà

"...a charming depiction of life as I knew it with my grandparents in my own village..." Clara Caleo Green, Cinema Italia UK "The sum of the individual fates and life choices paints a picture, the validity of which extends far beyond this village." Joachim Manzin, Black Box This documentary records the thoughtful and emotional confrontation with time, change, loss and hope related by the members of a small community in the idyllic Ligurian countryside who are dealing with a rapidly changing agricultural industry, transformed by globalisation and technological advances and an increasing number of foreigners buying the empty houses in their village. Forgoing the use of music and voice over, the film lets Aracà's inhabitants tell their own stories and allows the audience to dive into the rich soundscape of the ligurian alpine countryside.

Sea Gypsies: The Far Side of the World

The vessel is Infinity, a 120-foot hand-built sailboat, crewed by a band of miscreants. The journey, an 8,000 mile Pacific crossing from New Zealand to Patagonia, with a stop in Antarctica. Unlike all the other boats heading to the Southern Ocean, Infinity is no ice-reinforced super-yacht crewed by professional sailors; rather, Infinity lives in the moment and sails on a whim. What can be found in abundance on board is blood, sweat, enthusiasm, risk tolerance, disdain for authority, and an ample supply of alcohol – all in all a mad voyage of reckless adventure just for the sheer joy of it. Along the way the crew will battle a hurricane of ice in the Ross Sea, assist the radical environmental group Sea Shepherd in their fight with illegal whalers, and tear every sail they have. At the heart of their journey is a quest for awe and a sense of wonder with the raw power of the natural world.

Our Soil is Our Heritage

Right on our doorstep there is something that feeds us all: living soil. But this precious resource is under threat – from us humans! Our planet needs more than 2000 years to form ten centimetres of fertile soil. What does this mean for the future?

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.

White Earth

An oil boom has drawn thousands to America’s Northern Plains in search of work. Against the backdrop of a cruel North Dakota winter, the stories of three children and an immigrant mother intertwine among themes of innocence, home, and the American Dream.

The Biggest Little Farm

The successes and failures of a couple determined to live in harmony with nature on a farm outside of Los Angeles are lovingly chronicled by filmmaking farmer John Chester, in this inspiring documentary.

Mururoa 1973

In 1973 Alister Barry joined the crew of a protest boat (The Fri) to Mururoa Atoll, where the French Government were testing nuclear weapons. Barry records the assembly of the crew, the long journey from Northland, and their reception in the test zone; when The Fri was boarded and impounded by French military he had to hide his camera in a barrel of oranges.

The End of the Line

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.

Seed: The Untold Story

A film about the importance of heirloom seeds to the agriculture of the world, focusing on seed keepers and activists from around the world.

Amazon - The Awakening of Florestania

Aiming to address how the environment has been mistreated since the beginning of the 20th century, the production brings back historical characters and compiles testimonies from representatives of diverse groups related to the theme.

Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret

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.

Split Estate

This compelling Emmy Award winning documentary shows the dirty side of hydraulic fracturing and natural gas, an energy source the industry touts as a clean alternative to fossil fuels.

Time to Change

Angolan director and screenwriter Pocas Pascoal reminds us that it’s time for a change, proposing through this film a look at colonialism, capitalism, and their impact on global biodiversity. We observe that the destruction of the ecosystem goes back a long way and is already underway through land exploitation, big game hunting, and the exploitation of man by man.

Blue Vinyl

With humor, chutzpah and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold set out in search of the truth about polyvinyl chloride (PVC), America's most popular plastic. From Long Island to Louisiana to Italy, they unearth the facts about PVC and its effects on human health and the environment.

Ruptures

Their destiny was well mapped out: brilliant studies, the promise of a good job and a big salary. However, nothing happened as planned. Aurélie, Maxime, Hélène, Emma, or Romain are graduates of Polytechnique, Sciences Po, Centrale or business schools. They have made a radical choice: to give up the future they were promised for a life they consider more compatible with the environmental and societal issues of our time. This film tells their story. For a year, the young director Arthur Gosset, himself a student at Centrale Nantes, followed the journey of six young people, their sometimes difficult decisions, their often painful breaks and their courageous choice to live in accordance with their convictions, whatever the cost. Discover the documentary that tells their story.

Seeds of Change

An organic farmer in Maine sets out to transform the prison food system. Seeds of Change captures the intersecting stories of life-long farmer Mark McBrine and several incarcerated men as they harvest their own meals from a five-acre prison garden unlike any other.

Food Evolution

As society tackles the problem of feeding our expanding population safely and sustainably, a schism has arisen between scientists and consumers, motivated by fear and distrust. Food Evolution, narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, explores the polarized debate surrounding GMOs. Looking at the real-world application of food science in the past and present, the film argues for sound science and open-mindedness in a culture that increasingly shows resistance to both.

Into Eternity: A Film for the Future

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.