Petrol Dollars for a Different Engine

A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems, and native communities across the planet.

Fall 2018: The Hambach Forest becomes a chaotic scene of the climate conflict. In the midst of this chaos, film student Steffen Meyn has a fatal accident. Based on footage he collected over two years, we follow Steffen’s path up the trees and into an activism full of contradictions.

Lydia Jennings is a member of the Huichol (Wixaritari) and Pascua Yaqui (Yoeme) Nations and holds a doctorate in soil microbiology. Her work is dedicated to environmental science and the essential role of Indigenous communities in these spaces. Her hope is to create more inclusive academic and environmental landscapes. In place of her graduation, which was canceled as a result of the pandemic, Lydia instead celebrated by running 50 miles in honor of the Indigenous scientists and knowledge keepers who came before her. It’s a run to honor the past and present while looking towards the future.

A group of scientists are thinking outside the box for ways to reverse the effects of global warming. And who better to save the earth than National Geographic Channel's host of the World's Toughest Fixes, Sean Riley? He'll join these experts in the labs and in the field to see what wacky new technologies are being developed, like sending mirrors into space and reducing the greenhouse emissions chickens produce.

Tamara is from the ocean and water runs in her veins. Born in a fishing village on the Mexican coast, she became a full-time scuba instructor. When she discovers plastic in her beloved ocean, she sets out to get the diving industry to stop using single-use plastic.

The Pullars are the last family using traditional methods to fish for wild Atlantic salmon off the coast of Scotland. When these include killing seals, the salmon’s natural predators, conflict erupts. Animal activist groups Sea Shepherd and Hunt Saboteurs oppose the Pullars at every turn, despite the legality of the fishermen’s actions and the consequences to their livelihood. Challenging preconceptions, this ambiguous doc puts modern environmentalism under the microscope.

From Inside of Here is a feature-length non-fiction film based in research in the Mexican Wolf Recovery Area in western New Mexico. The audience is invited to understand the filmmaker as a subject co-produced by their location, as well as consider the ways the land is co-produced by those on it. The place itself is a character in the film, as are the filmmaker's methods. The film is composed of multiple media: 16mm film, HD video, infrared stills, inter-titles, and sound recordings. The result is a feminist ethnographic landscape film that communicates both the majesty of 1800s landscape photography and the violence of a settler colonial gaze that is its context.

Exploring the impact of human behavior on our environment from the perspective of one of South Florida's most beloved and fragile underwater creatures: the sea turtle. A critical look at the effects of global warming, water pollution, and our "throw-away" plastic lifestyle on this keystone species...and inevitably ourselves.

Unravel follows the Western worlds least wanted clothes, on a journey across Northern India, from sea to industrial interior. They get sent to Panipat, a sleepy town and the only place in the world that wants them, recycling them back into yarn. Reshma is a bright, inquisitive woman working in a textile recycling factory in small time India, who dreams of travelling the vast distances the clothes she handles have. While Reshma shows us how these garments get transformed, she and other women workers reflect on these clothes. Despite limited exposure to western culture, they construct a picture of how the West is, using both their imagination and the rumours that travel with the cast-offs.

Harmful chemicals are disproportionately affecting Black communities in Southern Louisiana along the Mississippi River. I am One of the People is an experimental short film exposing the environmental racism of “Cancer Alley.”

Dare to Dream was directed by Marianne Jenkins, a film student from Goldsmiths' College, University of London, in 1990. It looks at the history of anarchism in the UK and beyond, as well as the state of the movement in the tumultuous year the poll tax uprising finally led to the resignation of Thatcher. Among the anarchist heavyweights interviewed are Albert Meltzer, Vernon Richards, Vi Subversa, Philip Sansom, Clifford Harper and Nicholas Walter, as well as a host of lesser known but equally committed dissidents. The film also features the miners strike and class struggle, squatting and social centres such as Bradford's 1in12 club, animal rights and feminism.

A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight, traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes—in moments private and public, funny and poignant—as he pursues the empowering notion that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion.

"Go Further" explores the idea that the single individual is the key to large-scale transformational change. The film follows actor Woody Harrelson as he takes a small group of friends on a bio-fueled bus-ride down the Pacific Coast Highway. Their goal? To show the people they encounter that there are viable alternatives.

Catron County, New Mexico -- the 'toughest county in the West' -- has been at the center of a struggle between ranchers, loggers, environmentalists, and the U.S. Forest Service over the management of federal land. The only physician in the county, concerned about the health of his community, began a process of dialogue among citizens. This is a story of how health was used as a catalyst to make peace.

A documentary on Paul Watson, who takes the law into his own hands on the open seas, confronting, by any nonviolent means necessary, the hunters who indiscriminately slaughter whales, seals and sharks, along with complicit governments and environmental organizations. Written by Anonymous "Pirate for the Sea" is a biographical film of Captain Paul Watson, the youngest founding member of Greenpeace Canada. He organized early campaigns protesting the killing of seals, whales, and dolphins. Greenpeace ejected him for being too much of an activist. Starting his own organization, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, he went on to sink illegal whaling ships, stopped Canadian seal hunts for ten years, permanently halted sealing in British Isles, killing of dolphins on Iki Island, Japan, etc. This documentary witnesses his latest campaigns and explores the personal and environmental history of this controversial marine conservationist. Written by R.C.

Warru, or black-footed rock-wallaby, is one of South Australia's most endangered mammals. In 2007, when numbers dropped below 200 in the APY Lands in the remote north-west of the State, the Warru Recovery Team was formed to help save the precious species from extinction. Bringing together contemporary science, practical on-ground threat management and traditional Anangu ecological knowledge, this unique decade-long program has celebrated the release of dozens of warru to the wild for the first time.

Paris to Pittsburgh brings to life the impassioned efforts of individuals who are battling the most severe threats of climate change in their own backyards. Set against the national debate over the United States' energy future - and the Trump administration's explosive decision to exit the Paris Climate Agreement - the film captures what's at stake for communities around the country and the inspiring ways Americans are responding.

One of the most important Kentuckians of the 20th century, Harry Caudill brought the story of Appalachia to national attention when his book “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” was released in 1963. The nonfiction account of Eastern Kentucky’s coal region, part history and part polemic, eloquently recounted the exploitation of Appalachia’s land and its people by business and government interests, and made Caudill a national spokesperson for his homeland. Harry Caudill spent his life advocating for Eastern Kentucky, with the aim of helping the powerless as well as securing the region’s unmatched natural resources for future generations. His work led to lasting government reforms for Appalachia, and his legacy remains a touchstone for activists today.

At the Edge of the World chronicles the controversial Sea Shepherd Antarctic Campaign against a Japanese whaling fleet. The international volunteer crew, under-trained and under-equipped, develop a combination of bizarre and brilliant tactics with which to stop the whalers. But first they must find the Japanese ships, a far more difficult challenge than ever imagined - long-time activist Paul Watson and first-time captain Alex Cornelissen employ an array of strategies in the hopes of finding an elusive adversary in the vast expanse of the Ross Sea. With one ship (the Farley Mowat) too slow to chase down the whaling fleet, with their second ship (the Robert Hunter) unsuited for Antarctic ice conditions and with no country supporting their efforts to enforce international law, the situation becomes increasingly desperate. Against all odds, however, a real-life pirate tale unfolds - a modern-day "David vs. Goliath" adventure.

Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old student in Sweden, started a school strike for the climate as her question for adults was, if you don’t care about my future on earth, why should I care about my future in school? Within months, her strike evolved into a global movement as the quiet teenage girl on the autism spectrum becomes a world-famous activist.