Award-Winning Films For A Sustainable Future

Follow Dark Sky Defender Sriram Murali on a journey into the Western Ghats of India, in quest of the stars. From the Fireflies to the Great Hornbills, a naturally dark place is also a naturally wild place. In Search of the Stars explores the profound relationship between the night skies, wildlife and humans.

When Louise Coghill saw the first plume of smoke begin to rise behind her parents property, she could never have predicted that in less than four hours, it would become a wall of flames, swallowing everything in its path. A photographer by trade, Louise has travelled the world documenting everything from the nomadic wanderers of Mongolia, to base life at Mount Everest. Capturing the extraordinary comes naturally to Louise, so when her family home in the semi-rural Western Australian town of Gidgegannup became engulfed in flames, her first instinct wasn’t to take shelter, it was to pick up her camera.

Florida’s artesian springs are a natural wonder of the world. As unique as the geysers of Yellowstone and as mesmerizing as Vernal Falls in Yosemite, these blue jewels surrounding the north Florida landscape are considered a treasure by many who see them. The state contains the largest and highest concentration of fresh water springs on earth. But today, the future of Florida’s springs is uncertain. With flow levels declining and nitrate pollution on the rise, the springs today bear the scars of a profound struggle. Florida's own government continues to approve permits for large companies that want to pump water from the springs and their springsheds, for nominal permit fees that often cost less than a day pass to Disney World. The Fellowship of the Springs takes viewers behind the scenes of the fight to save Florida's springs, from the halls of the state capitol in Tallahassee to deep caves of Ichetucknee spring.

The Eastern Black Rail is a federally Endangered and extremely secretive marsh bird, found primarily along the mid-Atlantic and Southeast coast of the United States. Habitat loss from development and sea-level rise inundation has reduced populations by 90% since the 1990s. Without intervention, the remaining east coast population is projected to be extirpated before 2070. Black Rails’ breeding success is incredibly vulnerable to minute changes in water level, and in coastal regions experiencing dramatic changes in storm regimes and steadily rising seas, their future depends on precise water-level management within the critical sites that remain. South Carolina’s ACE Basin is a one such landscape, uniquely comprised of historically dike-impounded wetlands, which today provides a stronghold for some 30 breeding pairs. A grassroots partnership among private landowners, non-profit conservation groups, and state and federal agencies is working urgently to understand the rails’ precise and cryptic needs, and to develop the techniques—and support—required to create those conditions on the ground. The Cornell Lab’s Center for Conservation Media has produced “Weathering Tides” (13 minutes), a short film highlighting the unlikely partnerships and pioneering techniques of this dedicated coalition. The film will be used by agency and non-profit partners in South Carolina and across the Atlantic Coast to build the support and participation necessary to scale effective management efforts beyond the ACE Basin, and to recover Eastern Black Rail populations. To learn more about the work in South Carolina, visit southcarolinablackrails.org. To learn more about efforts to recover Black Rail population across the Atlantic Coast, visit acjv.org/black-rail This film was made possible through generous support from the Robert F. Schumann Foundation.