Award-Winning Films For A Sustainable Future

The Carbon Chronicles: Who owns the air? The Carbon Chronicles is an experimental animated visualisation of the build-up of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses has radically altered the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a collaboration between artists from the Manifest Data Lab and scientists from the British Antarctic Survey. The animation maps from the industrial revolution to the present day the regions contributing most to the climate crisis, which can be traced through the stalagmite growths representing CO2 emissions growing out from the different countries. Beginning with the UK in the 1750s, emissions from coal start enveloping the planet, other regions soon follow. By the late 1800s through to the current period, growing industrial and extraction activity in the Global North is responsible for 92% of CO2 with 8% coming from the Global South. The spread of CO2 described in the animation mirrors the wider historic processes of power distribution visited on poorer countries and shows that the atmosphere is as contested a space as the territories beneath it. The work describes a living breathing planet, under the pressure of human produced exhalations of CO2. It attributes responsibility in ways that can inform the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation and its impacts. The Carbon Chronicles informs the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis that are mindful of the historic consequences of carbon exploitation to ask: Who Owns the Air?

Does whale watching protect or harm whales? This film explores heated controversies over whale watching, boat noise, and orca conservation in Washington State and British Columbia. Whale watching companies claim that they serve as "sentinels" protecting the orca from unwary recreational boaters, ferries, and ships. A number of local conservationists and scientists have argued that whale watching boats crowd and harass whales, while adding noise to the orcas' immediate environment that makes it difficult for the social species to survive. "Sentinels of Silence?" uses dramatic imagery, peer-reviewed science, and interviews with conservationists, scientists, and industry officials to bring a fascinating chapter in the orca conservation story to light. In December, 2020, three months after Sentinels of Silence? was released, the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commission made an historic decision to more closely regulate whale watching companies' activities around the Southern Resident Killer Whales, citing noise and harassment as factors.

This feature film has already won 3 top awards: Best Environment and Climate Feature, Semi-Finalist, and Quarter-Finalist. Are you ready for an adventure out on the rivers of the Pantanal Wetland, south of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil? Here we spot wild jaguars like Medrosa and her cubs, giant river otters, and giant storks, while hearing harrowing memories from locals Elizeu, Eduarda, and zoologist Abbie about the climate change fires they have been fighting for 4 years due to severe climate droughts that threaten to destroy this exquisitely beautiful area and the Earth we live on. The Amazon Rainforest is struggling to survive. It affects the global climate. The Pantanal cannot survive without the Amazon and neither can we. We discover that saving jaguars is also saving ourselves and in the process, we discover real solutions and actions that will help save us all. The cinematography and wildlife in this film is described by professionals as stunning, amazing. The Pantanal is the only place in the world where wild jaguars live peacefully with people through ecotourism. These jaguars are known individually by name thanks to the work of Abbie Martin of the Jaguar Identification Project and citizen science efforts of the local community. They are identified by their individual rosette spot patterns. This film includes examples of human--jaguar interaction and communities safely living in close proximity with jaguars. The Pantanal has 5,000 species of wildlife, and is the world's largest wetland, bigger than Florida. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres describes the extreme urgency of addressing climate change. Al Gore explains that we have everything we need to solve climate change. What is lacking is political will. This film is includes many practical solutions that everyday people can do to address climate change!

Michael Bauch, a Long Beach resident and independent filmmaker, noticed that many of his local errands involved short rides which were less than three miles. In the summer of 2007 he and his family went to Amsterdam, to document the biking and walking culture that is so natural to the Dutch people. The film suggests that we in the U.S. re-examine our view of bicycles.