Earthbound: Nzambi Matee

The Film “Life with Vultures” is about the efforts of a handful of NGOs and Government Agencies to save the only remaining Vulture species on the island of Cyprus, and by extension several other species of Birds and other wild animals

Wildnis 2.0 - Die Tierwelt auf Umwegen

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

In the cobalt mining areas of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), babies are being born with horrific birth defects. Scientists and doctors are finding increasing evidence of environmental pollution from industrial mining which, they believe, may be the cause of a range of malformations from cleft palate to some so serious the baby is stillborn. More than 60% of the world’s reserves of cobalt are in the DRC and this mineral is essential for the production of electric car batteries, which may be the key to reducing carbon emissions and to slowing climate change. In The Cost of Cobalt we meet the doctors treating the children affected and the scientists who are measuring the pollution. Cobalt may be part of the global solution to climate change, but is it right that Congo’s next generation pay the price with their health? Many are hoping that the more the world understands their plight, the more pressure will be put on the industry here to clean up its act.

As more and more of us use and replace electronic devices, manufacturers have failed to offer solutions for how to deal with the resulting waste. Much of it is exported to a toxic dump in Ghana, where scavengers do their best to salvage what they can.

This underwater ballet is an ecological story depicting our paradoxical relationship with plastic. Bakelite launched the #SickOfPlastic campaign from On Est Prêt, along with the Surfrider Foundation, Break Free from Plastic and the Resilient Foundation. Photography was directed by Jacques Ballard, a specialist in underwater cinematography.

The community of Woodberry Down in Hackney rallies to save a beloved local plane tree from development.

In Tacony Creek Park, home to one of Philadelphia's lesser-known watersheds, Julie Slavet and Malcolm Bundy reflect on their involvement with and love for the park, made bittersweet by the continuous and increasing amount of pollution that flows into its river. Combined wastewater and stormwater sewage outfalls have affected Philadelphia's rivers for years, but as one innovative program mitigates this for the Schuylkill and Delaware, Tacony gets left behind. Scientist Laura Toran educates the audience on green infrastructure and its potential positive impacts, while Slavet and Bundy discuss how they're still waiting—not without hope—for those impacts to reach their community.

Moonchild is one of Fulton’s very earliest ethnographic projects. Filming in East Africa while on another production, he shoots with single frame bursts from his Bolex camera with an Angenieux 5.9 lens. He could shoot inconspicuously from the hip, an approach he learned from his father, filmmaker Robert Fulton Jr. In Moonchild, he shares his first impressions of Africa.

The bleakness of Antarctica is a fallacy. The ice continent is full of life and offers a biodiversity of which only about two percent are known. Much of it is under water and could determine the future of human beings. When the northern lights cover the ice landscape in summer, the animals in the Antarctic are in a paradisiacal state. Whales blow their fountains in the sky, penguins fly like small rockets into the water, seals dive for crabs under the glittering ice floes. From the bay of the Ross Sea to the ice shelf, from the huge penguin colonies to steaming volcanoes, a life in rhythm with the ice. But the consequences of climate change are slowly becoming apparent here too. While some species are dying, others are spreading. They could bring new viruses and bacteria with them, and new dangers for humans too. The structure of nature has gotten off course. How many generations will still be able to experience the magic of Antarctica?

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

Efter floden

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.

In Lopera (Jaén), the ecological transition has turned into a nightmare: centuries-old olive groves are being uprooted to make way for massive photovoltaic plants, in an unfair battle between powerful corporations and the local community. Through firsthand testimonies, striking visuals, and an analysis of the current energy model, Forced Renewables reveals how progress, when poorly planned and disconnected from rural life, can lead to an unprecedented ecological, social, and economic disaster.

Zagadka Heweliusza

"The Shoes We Wear" is a short documentary on footwear created by Anderson Hauptli. This is one of my most significant passion projects to date, the footage has been accumulated in the timeframe of an entire year...

Supervolcan Yellowstone : Menace sur la planète ?

For several decades, geoscientists have been observing that the Earth is changing rapidly due to human intervention. This action has such a great impact on the biological, geological and atmospheric processes of the Earth that some scientists speak of the dawn of a new epoch: the Age of Man or the Anthropocene.

Steel giant Thyssen Krupp in Germany and cargo ship operator Maersk in Denmark are investing huge sums of money with public support to convert their huge and dirty energy consumption to ‘green’. Hydrogen plays a central role in this. At the same time, countries in Africa such as Morocco and Namibia are gearing up to become giga-suppliers of the new energy source. But does it all make sense? Why not just produce green steel in Africa? And what's the story behind the blue hydrogen that is supposed to come from Norway via pipeline? The film follows pioneers on breathtaking projects and shows that the energy transition is more complicated than expected and holds many surprises in store.

“…It is a film that tells in hurried film sequences and a resonant musical score juxtaposing the sublime, funereal despair of Bartok agains tthe gut-bare tones of folk music. Gates has through his filming technique and meticulously selected mining sites, captured all the outrage and sorrow and indignity to the land and its people that strip mining represents. The film is one that all Americans should see, for it shows extremely well the price we have to pay for strip mined coal.” - Dale A. Burk, The Montana “Missoulian”