The Grand Swim

In the first half of the 19th century, the French ornithologist Jean-Jacques Audubon travelled to America to depict birdlife along the Mississippi River. Audubon was also a gifted painter. His life’s work in the form of the classic book ‘Birds of America’ is an invaluable documentation of both extinct species and an entire world of imagination. During the same period, early industrialisation and the expulsion of indigenous peoples was in full swing. The gorgeous film traces Audubon’s path around the South today. The displaced people’s descendants welcome us and retell history, while the deserted vistas of heavy industry stretch across the horizon. The magnificent, broad images in Jacques Loeuille’s atmospheric, modern adventure reminds us at the same time how little - and yet how much - is left of the nature that Audubon travelled around in. His paintings of the colourful birdlife of the South still belong to the most beautiful things you can imagine.

A group of young architects, confined to a forest in Barcelona during the COVID crisis, explore the problems generated by the ambition of wanting to be completely self-sufficient.

Mira-futuro

An organic farmer in Maine sets out to transform the prison food system. Seeds of Change captures the intersecting stories of life-long farmer Mark McBrine and several incarcerated men as they harvest their own meals from a five-acre prison garden unlike any other.

Im Wald der wilden Bienen

A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse

Five scientists and a hairdresser, tackling climate change, one stick at a time.

Stream of consciousness awakened by the shots of an inauspicious summer.

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

The story of individuals from all walks of life that have faced incredible obstacles, found the drive to overcome their disabilities, and have through water sports become real everyday heroes.

A 3-minute tribute to the late Mac Miller.

The film reveals the astonishing beauty and profound ecological importance of the Pantanal: the largest tropical wetland on Earth, spanning over 17 million hectares across Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. The wetland is home to several groups of Indigenous peoples as well as rare and endangered wildlife, including species found nowhere else. But the Pantanal has suffered more fire damage than any other ecosystem. Told through the journeys of two environmental defenders, and blending beautiful cinematography with insights from scientists, Indigenous leaders and activists, the film is a wake-up call and an invitation to stand alongside those working to protect one of the last truly wild places on the planet.

Pombo Doméstico: Herói ou Vilão?

A group of Argentines try to reach Lago Escondido, in the south of their own country, where the British billionaire Joe Lewis has created a fiefdom of twelve thousand hectares that functions as a parallel state. This documentary narrates the Seventh March to Lago Escondido in 2023, with a camera that records the events directly, but also investigates dark geopolitical interests, business/judicial lobbies and the complicity of some sectors of Argentine politics with foreign interests.

A research team races to understand mycoplasma ovipneumoniae (m.ovi), an infectious disease tearing through bighorn sheep populations.

La bicyclette fait sa vélorution

Malaika Vaz follows the illegal manta ray trade pipeline from fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean, to the Indo-Myanmar border and finally undercover in the wildlife trafficking hubs of Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

Recounts the chilling events leading up to the emergence of the deadly Ebola virus. Shot on location in Africa, Europe and North America, and features interviews with Ebola survivors.

M(o)ai + plastica

Cold Refuge is about the physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects of full immersion in the natural world: how, though it may seem counter-intuitive, swimming in cold water helps mitigate some of life’s most serious challenges. The film’s diverse film subjects include a wheelchair-bound, paralyzed swimmer who faces fear by diving off a high pier; a Black man who was told by whites when he was 13 that “Black people don’t swim” (it took him 30 years to try); a blind man who tethers himself to a sighted swimmer; a woman with aggressive breast cancer who “swims to chemo;” a lawyer who reduces courtroom stress in the open water; and a young woman who communes with her late mother in San Francisco Bay, where they both swam together. Along with swimmers’ stories of adversity and resilience, the film’s marine mammals, birds, artwork, and a variety of open-water locations create a visual meditation on what it means to escape our abstract digital world in favor of what’s real.