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.
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014)
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.
Being Caribou (2005)
April 8, 2003: Karsten Heuer + Leanne Allison left the remote community of Old Crow,Yukon, to join the Porcupine Caribou Herd on their epic life journey. For 5 months the Canadians migrated on foot with the 123,000-member herd from wintering to calving grounds in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and back again — 1500km across snow and tundra. They completed their journey on Sept. 8, 2003.
Once Upon a Time in a Forest (2024)
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.
Seven Rivers Walking - Haere Mārire (2017)
Documentary about the degraded rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand.
Style Wars (1984)
Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant's PBS documentary tracks the rise and fall of subway graffiti in New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
From the Ashes (2017)
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.
The Ants and the Grasshopper (2021)
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.
Crude (2009)
The story of lawsuit by tens of thousands of Ecuadorans against Chevron over contamination of the Ecuadorean Amazon.
The End of the Line (2009)
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.
Another Side of the Forest (1974)
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.
Who Is Haoran? (2006)
A group of small-town boys has prepared to beat up on this boy named Haoran for a long while. Belligerent and energetic. They tried every trick to catch him in vain including hunting him in the classroom and ambushing him on his way home. These little rebels fooled around each day, smoking, running away from their homes, and chasing after an impossible target. But who is this mysterious Haoran?
Watershed: Exploring a New Water Ethic for the New West (2012)
As the most dammed, dibbed, and diverted river in the world struggles to support thirty million people and the peace-keeping agreement known as the Colorado River Pact reaches its limits, WATERSHED introduces hope. Can we meet the needs of a growing population in the face of rising temperatures and lower rainfall in an already arid land? Can we find harmony amongst the competing interests of cities, agriculture, industry, recreation, wildlife, and indigenous communities with rights to the water? Sweeping through seven U.S. and two Mexican states, the Colorado River is a lifeline to expanding populations and booming urban centers that demand water for drinking, sanitation and energy generation. And with 70% of the rivers’ water supporting agriculture, the river already runs dry before it reaches its natural end at the Gulf of California. Unless action is taken, the river will continue its retreat – a potentially catastrophic scenario for the millions who depend on it.
Skinhead Attitude (2003)
Outlines the history of 40 years of the skinhead subculture, beginning with the most recent versions of the culture.
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2006)
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.
Chernobyl Heart (2003)
This Academy Award-winning documentary takes a look at children born after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster who have been born with a deteriorated heart condition.
Live and Let Live (2013)
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.
Art as a Weapon (2014)
Street art, creativity and revolution collide in this beautifully shot film about art’s ability to create change. The story opens on the politically charged Thailand/Burma border at the first school teaching street art as a form of non-violent struggle. The film follows two young girls (Romi & Yi-Yi) who have escaped 50 years of civil war in Burma to pursue an arts education in Thailand. Under the threat of imprisonment and torture, the girls use spray paint and stencils to create images in public spaces to let people know the truth behind Burma's transition toward "artificial democracy." Eighty-two hundred miles away, artist Shepard Fairey is painting a 30’ mural of a Burmese monk for the same reasons and in support of the students' struggle in Burma. As these stories are inter-cut, the film connects these seemingly unrelated characters around the concept of using art as a weapon for change.
The Water Cycle (1972)
An award-winning short exploring man-made impacts on New Zealand’s water cycle.
Fairy Creek (2025)
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.