Travis Kidd/2012/11 min/Health & Environment

A Forest in Flux explains the impacts of a recent mountain pine beetle outbreak in the Rocky Mountains. The film takes a narrative approach to explain the ecology of the mountain pine beetle to kids aged 8-12. We follow a young boy on his quest to discover what is killing all the pine trees in his back yard.  He uses a smart phone to do take photos of what he sees and does research about the clues he is finding.

Barbara Ettinger/2009/60 min/Wildlife

Imagine a world without fish.  It’s a frightening premise, and it’s happening right now.  A Sea Change follows the journey of retired history teacher Sven Huseby on his quest to discover what is happening to the world’s oceans.  After reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Darkening Sea,” Sven becomes obsessed with the rising acidity of the oceans and what this “sea change” bodes for mankind. His quest takes him to Alaska, California, Washington, and Norway as he uncovers a worldwide crisis that most people are unaware of.

Verónica Moscoso/2011/26 min/Climate Control

A Wild Idea is an award-winning documentary about the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, Ecuador’s unprecedented proposal for fighting global climate change.  In exchange for payments from the world community, the country will leave untouched its largest oil reserves. If the proposal is accepted, it willconserve the Amazon’s biodiversity, protect the rights of indigenous people and avoid the emission of millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Suzan Beraza/2010/74 min/Waste

Bag It has been garnering awards at film festivals across the nation. What started as a documentary about plastic bags evolved into a wholesale investigation into plastics and their effect on our waterways, oceans, and even our bodies.  Join the Bag It movement and decide for yourself how plastic your life will be.

Marc Francis and Nick Francis/2006/78 min/Food & Agriculture

Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.  But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields. 

Monte Thompson/2010/60 min/Health & Environment

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.

Jeff Orlowski/2012/76 min/Water

Chasing Ice is the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers. 

Stefan Schaefer/2008/57 min (25 min clip)/Transportation

Through interviews with leading historians, urban planners, and government officials, Contested Streets: Breaking New York City Gridlock explores the history and culture of New York City streets from pre-automobile times to the present. This examination allows for an understanding of how the city, though the most well served by mass transit in the United States, has slowly relinquished what was a rich, multi-dimensional conception of the street as public space to a mindset that prioritizes the rapid movement of cars and trucks over all other functions. 

Ellen Tripler/2011/26 min/Health & Environment

Have you chosen to live a greener life?  One man has and he has taken it one step further: he not only wants to live green but he wants die green as well and is helping others do the same.  Dying Green is a short documentary set in the foothills of the Appalachians, explores one man’s vision of using green burials to conserve land.

Rob Holmes (Founder/Pres. GLP)/2012/5 min/Economy

Fairtrade Africa is a group making sure African coffee bean farmers earn a fair income for helping homes around the world brew the perfect cup of coffee. In this short film GLP Films visits Fairtrade Africa as they work in the interest of farmers and fair trade-certified producers in Africa, helping them connect to consumers worldwide. 

Jeff & Jennifer Spitz/ 2014/ 73 min/ Food & Agriculture

FILM DESCRIPTION: A midwestern mother whose son nearly died from contaminated food embarks on a roller coaster journey to understand the food industry and improve her family’s eating habits. Surprising, funny, and poignant, this personal film unfolds from one family’s story into a powerful consumer movement. Food Patriots features food advocates from all walks of life who are trying to hatch a revolution to change the way Americans eat and buy food and educate the next generation of consumers.

Hypatia Angelique Porter/2007/15 min

What is the cost of convenience?  For the Price of a Cup of Coffee is a short environmental documentary examining the life cycle of a paper cup and the repercussions of a society reliant on convenience.  Why are less than 1% of coffeeshop patrons bringing their own cup?  Why do we have so much garbage, and where does it go? What is the true cost of a disposable culture?

Jeffrey Smith & Institute for Responsible Technology/2012/85 min/Food & Agriculture

Shocking. Life-Changing. You won’t look at food the same way again. Genetic Roulette exposes the dirt behind Big-Biotech’s Big failed experiment. Never-Before-Seen-Evidence points to genetically engineered foods as a major contributor to rising disease rates in the US population, especially among children. Gastrointestinal disorders, allergies, inflammatory diseases, and infertility are just some of the problems implicated in humans, pets, livestock, and lab animals that eat genetically modified soybeans and corn. 

Žiga Virc/2010/52 min/Energy

Step inside the energy capital of the world, to hear the hard truth about oil, straight from the Texas oilmen themselves. For decades American presidents have warned of our nation’s dependence on foreign oil. See just how the U.S. Energy Policy turned into a strategy of defense, not offense; the recent Gulf disaster, an inevitable tragedy. Today, in the midst of unsolvable wars, global warming, recession, peak oil, and oil spills, the world’s energy demand continues to skyrocket. The U.S. energy demand alone is predicted to go up 50% in the next 20 years. Hear the confessions of oilmen, who work in the trenches every day, scrambling to feed America’s ferocious appetite. 

Robert Bates/2009/67 min/Food & Agriculture

American food is in a state of crisis, but a movement to put good food back on the table is emerging.  What began 30 years ago with chefs demanding better flavor, has inspired consumers to seek relationships with nearby farmers. This is local food. At the focal point of this movement, and of this film, are the farmers and chefs who are creating a truly sustainable food system. Their collaborative work has resulted in great tasting food and an explosion of consumer awareness about the benefits of eating local. Attention being paid to the local food movement comes at a time when the failings of our current industrialized food system are becoming all too clear. 

Jessica Yu/2011/105 min/Water

Illuminating the vital role water plays in our lives, exposing the defects in the current system and depicting communities already struggling with its ill-effects, Last Call at the Oasis features activist Erin Brockovich and such distinguished experts as Peter Gleick, Alex Prud’homme, Jay Famiglietti and Robert Glennon. Developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, the company responsible for AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, FOOD, INC. andWAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”, Last Call at the Oasis presents a powerful argument for why the global water crisis will be the central issue facing our world this century.

Leslie Iwerks/2011/39 min/Water

Across the heartland of America, farmers and landowners are fighting to protect their land, their water, and their livihood in what has become the most controversial environmental battle in the U.S. today:  The Keystone XL Pipeline.  Routed from Hardity, Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast, this tar sands pipeline is set to cross the country’s largest fresh water resource, the Ogallala Aquifer and the fragile Sandhills of Nebraska, posing devastating consequences to human health, livestock and agriculture.

Tonje Hessen Schei/ 2010/ 82 min/ Health & Environment

FILM DESCRIPTION: This moving and humorous documentary follows six teenagers who, like the “average American child,” spend five to fifteen hours a day behind screens. Play Again unplugs these teens and takes them on their first wilderness adventure – no electricity, no cell phone coverage, no virtual reality. Through the voices of children and leading experts including a journalist, sociologist, environmental writer, educator, neuroscientist, parks advocate, and geneticist, Play Again investigates the consequences of a childhood removed from nature and encourages action for a sustainable future.

2012/60 min/Health & Environment

Dr. Richard Jackson explains the link between our health and the way our communities — especially our suburbs — are designed.  Obesity, asthma, diabetes and heart disease are all aggravated by the auto-centric way we live our lives today. It’s no secret that today’s generation of children are likely to have shorter lives than their parents because of their unhealthy lifestyles.  It doesn’t have to be this way. Well-designed communities can improve both physical and mental health, as Dr. Jackson explains in this four-part public television series and the accompanying book.  Searching for Shangri-La is part four of the series.

Byron Hurt/2011/63 min/Food & Agriculture

Soul Food Junkies explores the health advantages and disadvantages of Soul Food, a quintessential American cuisine. Soul food will also be used as the lens to investigate the dark side of the food industry and the growing food justice movement that has been born in its wake.

Debra Anderson/2009/76 min/Energy

Imagine discovering that you don’t own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. Imagine having little recourse, other than accepting an unregulated industry in your backyard. Split Estate maps a tragedy in the making, as citizens in the path of a new drilling boom in the Rocky Mountain West struggle against the erosion of their civil liberties, their communities and their health.

Kelly Matheson; Christi Cooper-Kuhn/2012/9 min per segment/Climate

Stories of TRUST: Calling for Climate Recovery, is about the perfect trifecta of youth, law and justice.  This series of short documentaries features the voices of daring youth from across the country who went to court to compel the government to protect our atmosphere, in trust, for future generations.  Calling for Climate Recovery is a 10-part groundbreaking documentary series of nine young people who bravely share their stories of harm, activism and hope around the climate crisis. 

Martin Scorsese, Mathieu Roy, and Harold Crooks/2011/86 min/Climate Control

“Every time history repeats itself the price goes up.”  Surviving Progress presents the story of human advancement as awe-inspiring and double-edged. It reveals the grave risk of running the 21st century’s software — our know-how — on the ancient hardware of our primate brain which hasn’t been upgraded in 50,000 years. With rich imagery and immersive soundtrack, filmmakers Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks launch us on journey to contemplate our evolution from cave-dwellers to space explorers. 

Franny Armstrong/2009/92 min/Climate Control

Launched at a Guinness World Recording-winning solar-powered premiere in London’s Leicester Square, the film was released in cinemas worldwide, topped the UK box office (by screen average), became one of the most talked-about films of 2009 and garnered sensational reviews: The Telegraph called it “Bold, supremely provocative and hugely important”, the News of the World described it as “A deeply inconvenient kick up the backside”, ABC Australia said “So tightly constructed and dynamic you leave the cinema energised rather than terrified… hits home like a hammer blow” and the LA Times said “Think ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, but with a personality”. 

Grant Baldwin/2010/87 min/Waste

Is it possible to live completely waste free? In this multi-award winning, festival favourite, partners Jen and Grant go head to head in a competition to see who can swear off consumerism and produce the least garbage.  Their light-hearted competition is set against a darker examination of the problem waste.

Jeremy Konner/2010/4 min/Waste

This mockumentary is narrated by Academy Award-winner Jeremy Irons and tracks the “migration” of a plastic bag from a grocery store parking lot to the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” in the Pacific Ocean.

Kevin McMahon/ 2009/ 49 min/ Water

Water’s journey from streams entering Lake Superior to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence Seaway takes 350 years.  Waterlife follows the epic cascade of the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.  From the icy cliffs of Lake Superior to the ornate fountains of Chicago to the sewers of Windsor, this documentary tells the story of the last huge supply (20 per cent) of fresh water on Earth. 

Stephen Titra/ 2012/ 5 min/ Transportation

Follows the Chicago organization by the same name that removes discarded bikes from the waste stream and then rehabs the bikes for donation.