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.
Tar Creek (2009)
Tar Creek is an environmentally devastated area in northeastern Oklahoma with acidic creeks, stratospheric lead poisoning and enormous sinkholes. Nearly 30 years after being designated as a Superfund cleanup program, residents are still struggling.
Eating Up Easter (2019)
The Rapanui community on Easter Island fights to prevent an environmental collapse due to overwhelming tourism and industrial progress, and and to preserve their cultural traditions.
Decommissioning Fukushima 2021: Ten Years on from the Nuclear Accident (2021)
A decade on from its triple core meltdown, we take stock of the mammoth task of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, an undertaking fraught with both technical and social challenges. The Japanese government maintains the process will take up to 40 years, but the schedule has already been revised 5 times, with pivotal elements postponed. Meanwhile, as people return to their homes in surrounding areas, disposal of unprecedented volumes of radioactive waste has become a point of contention between residents and the government. We look back on the 10 years since the nuclear disaster and explore the choices that will shape Fukushima's future.
The Sun Queen (2023)
Chemical engineer and inventor Maria Telkes worked for nearly 50 years to harness the power of the sun, designing and building the world's first successful solar-heated modern residence and identifying a new chemical that could store solar heat like a battery. Telkes was undercut and thwarted by her (male) boss and colleagues at MIT, but she persevered. Upon her death in 1995 Telkes held more than 20 patents, and now she is recognized as a visionary pioneer in the field of sustainable energy whose work continues to shape how we power our lives today.
The Life and Legend of Jane Goodall (1990)
Born in London in 1934, Jane Goodall spent decades in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park, studying the social and family structures of chimpanzees and helping to bring their ecological vulnerability into the public consciousness. She also founded and remains integral to the Jane Goodall Institute, which encourages environmental activism and stewardship among young people. In this program, the famous scientist reflects on her many years spent observing and learning about our primate cousins.
Son of Torum (1989)
In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.
Specters of Watch Oak (2023)
Mariners Marsh, Bloomfield, Watchogue, Old Place. History, mythology, nature, anthropogenic industry, and digitally-demarcated landscape collide in the salt meadows and brownfield beaches of northwestern Staten Island. A human-haunted nature film. All stories are ghost stories. Narration drawn from the writings of Staten Island's preeminent historian, naturalist, and mythographer William T. Davis (1862 - 1945).
Frogs: The Thin Green Line (2009)
An examination of the extinction threat faced by frogs, which have hopped on Earth for some 250 million years and are a crucial cog in the ecosystem. Scientists believe they've pinpointed a cause for the loss of many of the amphibians: the chytrid fungus, which flourishes in high altitudes. Unfortunately, they don't know how to combat it. Included: an isolated forest in Panama that has yet to be touched by the fungus, thus enabling frogs to live and thrive as they have for eons.
The Family of the Forest (NaN)
In the heart of the Boreal forest lives a family renowned as much for their gourmet forest pickings as for their life of self-sufficiency.
White Earth (2015)
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.
Amazonia, an Encounter with the Guardians of the Rainforest (2024)
With a hybrid style blending political essay and road movie, this documentary by Santiago Bertolino takes us into the heart of the Amazonian reality. Following Marie-Josée Béliveau, an ecologist and ethnogeographer, they journey together along the 4000 km from the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil to one of its sources in Ecuador where they meet with the guardians of the forest. As a result, we witness powerful and spontaneous testimonies from local communities who are doing everything to preserve what remains of their lands, which are disappearing due to the inexorable advance of Western modernity.
Radio Bikini (1988)
It starts with a live radio broadcast from the Bikini Atoll a few days before it is annihilated by a nuclear test. Shows great footage from these times and tells the story of the US Navy Sailors who were exposed to radioactive fallout. One interviewed sailor suffered grotesquely swollen limbs and he is shown being interviewed with enormous left arm and hand.
Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment (1991)
This 1991 Academy Award®-winning documentary uncovers the disastrous health and environmental side effects caused by the production of nuclear materials by the General Electric Corporation.
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
One Word (2020)
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.
The Shetland Experience (1977)
The environmental measures taken by the oil industry at the Sullom Voe terminal in the Shetlands.
Battle Over Bears Ears (2018)
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.
Of Fish and Foe (2018)
The Pullars are the last family using traditional methods to fish for wild Atlantic salmon off the coast of Scotland. When these include killing seals, the salmon’s natural predators, conflict erupts. Animal activist groups Sea Shepherd and Hunt Saboteurs oppose the Pullars at every turn, despite the legality of the fishermen’s actions and the consequences to their livelihood. Challenging preconceptions, this ambiguous doc puts modern environmentalism under the microscope.
Asbestos (2024)
A cinematic and introspective look at the residents of a Quebec town—once the site of the world's largest asbestos mine—as they grapple with their community's industrial past. Striving to honour their heritage while reconciling with their history and forging a new path forward, the miners delve into the intricacies of progress and healing.