Nouveau Monde (2016)

You Think the Earth Is a Dead Thing

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.

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.

A Wild Idea: The Birth of the APA

The creation of the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) in 1971 and the impact it has had on the development of the park over the years. Most of the land within the park is privately owned, yet the Adirondacks remain largely undeveloped.

Seven Rivers Walking - Haere Mārire

Documentary about the degraded rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Our Story: The Indigenous Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco

Over 90 percent of the available lands in the Greater Chaco region of the Southwest have already been leased for oil and gas extraction. Witness the Indigenous-led work to protect the remaining lands that are untouched by oil and gas, as well as the health and well-being of communities surrounded by these extractive industries.

Threatened: The Controversial Struggle of the Southern Sea Otter

Sea otters are once again in peril after being brought back from the brink of extinction. An unprecedented number of sea otter deaths have occurred along the California coast in the last three years. Meanwhile, the Fish & Wildlife Services decision to eliminate their No Otter Zone from Southern California waters remains controversial. This fragile species threatened by pollution, infectious diseases, starvation, and competition with fishermen struggles for survival.

The Ants and the Grasshopper

Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions that shape the USA: from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, and to the American exceptionalism that remains a part of the culture. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognise, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.

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.

An Inconvenient Truth

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

Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival

In Fabrizio Terranova’s film, Donna Haraway – an original thinker and activist, one of the founders of cyberfeminism and the author of A Cyborg Manifesto, which proposed a number of innovative theories about the existence of scientific knowledge – calls for the abandonment of the idea of human exceptionalism and for a conception of the world as complex web of interconnections between people, animals and machines. Jellyfish can be seen flying around her home while she discusses the stories that are necessary for Earth’s preservation and reads her fantastic tale of the art of survival on a broken planet, and of fusion and care between the species.

Plastic People

Are we becoming Plastic People? Our ground-breaking feature documentary investigates our addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics on human health. Almost every bit of plastic ever made ends up ground down into "microplastics". These microscopic particles drift in the air, float in the water and sit in the soil. And now, leading scientists are finding them in our bodies: organs, blood, brain tissue and even the placentas of new mothers. What is the impact of these invisible invaders on our health? Ziya Tong, author and science journalist, makes it personal by visiting leading scientists and undergoing experiments in her home, on her food, and on her body.

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.

From the Ashes

Capturing Americans in communities across the country as they wrestle with the legacy of the coal industry and what its future should be under the Trump Administration. From Appalachia to the West’s Powder River Basin, the film goes beyond the rhetoric of the “war on coal” to present compelling and often heartbreaking stories about what’s at stake for our economy, health, and climate.

Tomorrow

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

More Than Honey

With dazzling nature photography, Academy Award®–nominated director Markus Imhoof (The Boat Is Full) takes a global examination of endangered honeybees — spanning California, Switzerland, China and Australia — more ambitious than any previous work on the topic.

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.

It Takes a Flood

Takes viewers inside the homes of people seriously affected by increasingly ferocious floods hitting the UK. With one in six British homes now at risk of flooding, residents across the country count the cost, both financial and mental, to their communities affected by flooding over the last decade.

Battle Over Bears Ears

At its heart, it’s a battle for homeland and sovereignty. Bears Ears, a remote section of land lined with red cliffs and filled with juniper sage, is at the center of a fight over who has a say in how Western landscapes are protected and managed.

How the West Was One

In a contemporary reimagining of the American West, three young women - a snake hunter, a New York artist, and a rodeo queen - challenge the idea of who is permitted to be a cowgirl.

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.

Orphaned

Through the eyes of ex-engineer, now filmmaker Gillian McKercher, Orphaned explores the huge task of cleaning up thousands of idle oil and gas wells in the prairies before it's too late.

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.

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.

The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes

A lesson in geography, which concludes that although the Great Lakes have had their ups and downs, nothing has been harder to take than what humans have done to them lately. In the film, a lone canoeist lives through the changes of geological history, through Ice Age and flood, only to find himself in the end trapped in a sea of scum.

Tomorrow's Power

Tomorrow’s Power is a feature length documentary that showcases three communities around the world and their responses to economic and environmental emergencies they are facing. In the war-torn, oil-rich Arauca province in Colombia, communities have been building a peace process from the bottom up. In Germany activists are pushing the country to fully divest from fossil-fuel extraction and complete its transition to renewable energy. In Gaza health practitioners are harnessing solar power to battle daily life-threatening energy blackouts in hospitals.

The Magnitude of All Things

Filmmaker Jennifer Abbott explores the emotional and psychological dimensions of the climate crisis and the relationship between grief and hope in times of personal and planetary change.

The New West and the Politics of the Environment

This film explores how iconic Nevada Senator Harry Reid set the foundations for a green new deal.

Uranium

Explores the consequences of uranium mining in Canada. Toxic and radioactive waste pose profound, long-term environmental hazards. Miners suffer a substantially increased risk of getting cancer. Most mining occurs on Indigenous People's land, violating their traditional economic and spiritual lives. Given our limited knowledge of the risks associated with uranium mining, why continue?

John Muir in the New World

The life and the career of John Muir come to life through this inspiring and beautiful documentary set against the magnificent landscapes of the American West. The Scottish-born naturalist was one of the first nature preservationists in American history, inspiring others through his writing and his advocacy to keep the wilderness wild. Shot in high definition in the spectacular landscapes that shaped Muir - and were, in turn, shaped by his devotion.

One Word

A documentary about the impacts of climate change on the Republic of the Marshall Islands and its people. Most parts of the Marshall Islands are less than 5.9 feet above sea level. Forecasts predict the uninhabitability of the country by 2050.

Gasland Part II

Two years ago, Josh Fox introduced us to hydraulic fracturing with his Oscar®-nominated exposé Gasland. Now this once-touted energy source has become a widely discussed, contentious topic. In his follow-up, Fox reveals the extreme circumstances facing those affected by fracking, from earthquakes to the use of federal anti-terror psychological operations tactics. Gasland Part II is the definitive proof that issues raised by fracking cannot be ignored for long.

Acoustic Ocean

Acoustic Ocean is an artistic exploration of the sonic ecology of marine life in the North Atlantic. Located on the Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway, the video centers on the performance of a marine-biologist diver who is using a life-size model of a submersible equipped with all sorts of hydrophones and recording devices. In this science-fictional quest, her task is to sense the submarine space for acoustic and bioluminescent forms of expression.

Taking Stock

The cod fishery off the east coast of Newfoundland was a way of life, the backbone of society -- until it collapsed. A review of the history leading up to the crisis and the subsequent call for a moratorium of the northwest Atlantic cod fishery.

Wilding

A young couple battle entrenched tradition and hostile forces to bet on nature for the future of their failing, four-hundred-year-old estate. Ripping down the fences, they set the land back to the wild and entrust its recovery to a motley mix of animals both tame and wild, beginning a grand experiment.

Waste Land

By 2045, twenty localities in Germany will be resettled because of brown coal open pit mining. The film Waste Land follows the inhabitants of three villages in the Rhenish coal-mining district during their last years in their old home and documents how an entire region prepares for its collective relocation.

Après Demain

Two years after the phenomenal success of the documentary Demain, Cyril Dion looks back at the projects the film inspired. He is accompanied by Laure Noualhat, a renowned investigator and sceptic of the ability of micro-initiatives to have any real impact in the face of climate change. Their humorous confrontation pushes them to their limits: what works, what fails? What if all this forces us to invent a new narrative for humanity?

Before the Flood

A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.