Award-Winning Films For A Sustainable Future

The concern of some young people in Vancouver, Canada, about an uncertain future in the face of climate change or a possible global catastrophe leads them to take the initiative to learn how to grow food on an urban plot. They embark on an adventure that surprises them not only for the power to feed themselves through their work on the land, but also for the community and health generated by the constant contact with nature. Finishing by knowing that growing food is within the reach of whoever wants it.

Join archaeologists and conservators along Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast as they uncover and meticulously document the submerged remains of a Roman ship in the ancient harbor of Barbir. Preserved in sediment for nearly 2,000 years, the ship's wooden hull provides experts at the International Centre for Underwater Archaeology in Zadar with invaluable insights into the ship’s origin, offering a rare glimpse into the region’s maritime history and cultural heritage. Recovered artifacts from the archaeological site, including pottery sherds, fishing weights, and Roman coins, are carefully conserved at the Centre, ensuring the preservation of their captivating stories for future generations. With specialized care, conservators delicately tend to each piece of history, so that archeologists and historians may shed light on ancient trade and daily life during the Roman era in Croatia.

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.

"The Story of Lumshnong" by Aarti Srivastava highlights ‘mindless’ limestone mining by cement companies. Lumshnong is a village situated in the Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya, India, which is rich in reserves of limestone. These rich reserves of limestone have attracted cement companies to set up their plants in the village, thus creating a hazardous environment for the local population. The documentary talks about “unthinkable stupidity of the cement companies”. There are as many as eight cement plants in a radius of just five kilometres in Lumshnong village. Limestone mining, as claimed in the documentary, has turned the Lumshnong village into a “dusty, waterless and barren” piece of land. “Studies revealed that loss of forest cover, pollution of water, soil and air, depletion of natural flora and fauna, reduction in biodiversity, erosion of soil, and degradation of agriculture land are some are some of the hazards of limestone mining,” the makers of the documentary stated. They added: “The hazards will not just be limited to the areas around the mines and cement factories but will spill to other regions if environmental checks are not put in place. It will also affect the lives of the people who live around the area.” The visuals of cement plants in the foreground, while the vegetations begins to look grey, and locals pointing at the shortcomings of limestone mining paint a sordid and truthful picture of what is happening in Lumshnong.