Adam Purple and the Garden of Eden

/in , , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
6 min.
Filmmakers: Amy Brost and Harvey Wang.
In 1975, on the crime-ridden Lower East Side of New York City, Adam Purple started a garden behind his tenement home. By 1986, The Garden of Eden was world famous and had grown to 15,000 square feet. For Adam–a social activist, philosopher, artist, and revolutionary–The Garden was the medium of his political and artistic expression. It was razed by the city in 1986 after a protracted court battle.
WEBSITE

Amazon Alive – Part 3: Forest of the Future

/in , , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
44 min.
Filmmaker: Christian Baumeister.
It is hard not to feel despair at the overwhelming images of rainforest destruction. But while documenting the region’s remarkable wildlife for the making of Amazon Alive, film-maker Christian Baumeister has also witnessed a changing mood: a growing belief that it is more valuable as a living forest than being stripped for its wood and minerals. Christian discovers that an increasing respect for the Amazon’s natural wonders can translate into hope for the future.
WEBSITE

America’s Wildest Refuge

/in , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
55 min.
Filmmaker: Lisa Oakley.
Tucked into a remote corner of Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a place where wilderness is experienced on an epic scale. Meet the early conservationists who helped establish the refuge, the Alaska Natives who rely upon it for their subsistence way of life, and those who look to it for economic sustenance. Get to know the refuge’s wildest residents, including caribou, bears, musk oxen, and the scientists studying them. Leave with a visceral sense of place, of the refuge’s natural bounty, of the crosscurrents that forged its past, and the challenges shaping its future.

Among Giants

/in , , , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
14 min.
Filmmaker: Chris Cresci.
As clearcutting continues to ravage California’s coastal redwood region, Farmer, an environmental activist decides to tree sit to defend the McKay Tract. A hundred feet up in the ancient redwood canopy, Farmer must battle the elements and avoid isolation as he fights for a sustainable future.
WEBSITE

Bag It

/in , , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
79 min.
Filmmakers: Caitlin Boyle and Lucy Flores.
Try going a day without plastic. In this touching and often flat-out-funny film, we follow “everyman” Jeb Berrier as he embarks on a global tour to unravel the complexities of our plastic world. What starts as a film about plastic bags evolves into a wholesale investigation into plastic’s effects on our oceans, environment, and bodies. We see how our crazy-for-plastic world has finally caught up to us…and what we can do about it.
WEBSITE

Bird Island

/in , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
39 min.
Filmmaker: Sara Poisson.
There is a magical island unlike any other on Earth. Less than a quarter of a square mile, Isla Rasa is so small it is difficult to find on a map. Some creatures, however, do not need a map. Generations of seabirds have found a way to this enchanted isle of Eden in the heart of Mexico’s Gulf of California. For three months every spring this flat and barren rock comes to life as over a half a million birds gather on one tiny island to multiply. Soon hundreds of thousands of chicks will greet the world head on, learn how to live, struggle to survive and eventually take to the sky– a bird’s eye view of the circle of life.

California Forever

/in , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
75 min.
Filmmaker: David Vassar.
This 75 minute documentary celebrates the beauty, drama and sweeping history of California State Parks, the most magnificent and diverse collection of state parks in the nation.

Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction

/in , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
60 min.
Filmmakers: Monte Thompson and Chera Van Burg.
All over the world species are becoming extinct at an astonishing rate, from 1000 to 10,000 times faster than normal. The loss of biodiversity has become so severe that scientists are calling it a mass extinction event. Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction is the first feature documentary to investigate the growing threat to Earth’s life support systems from this unprecedented loss of biodiversity. It tells the story of a crisis not only in nature, but also in human nature, a crisis more threatening than anything human beings have ever faced before.
WEBSITE

Charcoal Burners (Smolarze)

/in , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
15 min.
Filmmaker: Piotr Zlotorowicz.
Every summer, Marek and Janina work as charcoal burners in the Bieszczady Mountains. Farfrom civilization, in the heart of the mountains, they live according to the rhythm set by nature.The documentary joins the man and the woman from dawn till dusk, observing the slow passageof time. A visual anthem to the beauty of life.

Chasing Water

/in , , /by

2011 FESTIVAL
19 min.
Filmmaker: Pete McBride.
The Colorado River is the seventh largest river in the U.S., supplying water to over 30 million people. It is also one of the most diverted, silted, and heavily litigated rivers in the world. The farmers and residents of the rapidly growing western states rely on the river for irrigation, drinking water, and electricity. This demand has permanently altered the river’s ecology. The Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict shows us the river’s entirety—from its headwaters in the Colorado Rockies to the dry riverbed that once reached the Sea of Cortez—in an oversized, full-color, photo essay format.
WEBSITE