The Ants and the Grasshopper

Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions that shape the USA: from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, and to the American exceptionalism that remains a part of the culture. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognise, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.

2021-05-26 | en

White Earth

An oil boom has drawn thousands to America’s Northern Plains in search of work. Against the backdrop of a cruel North Dakota winter, the stories of three children and an immigrant mother intertwine among themes of innocence, home, and the American Dream.

2015-01-30 | en

A Year Along the Geostationary Orbit

A year through the distant eyes of meteorological satellite Himawari-8 – a hypnotic stream of Earth's beauty, fragility and disasters. Animation of satellite irradiation scan measurements, scientific data by meteorological satellite Himawari-8 courtesy of JMA/BoM/NCI

2018-01-01 | de

The Apocalypse of the Animals

A documentary about the life of wild animals.

1973-06-05 | fr

The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream

Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream. But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge...

2004-01-12 | en

Earth 2100

Experts say over the next hundred years the "perfect storm" of population growth, resource depletion and climate change could converge with catastrophic results. The scenarios in Earth 2100 are not a prediction of what will happen but rather a warning about what might happen.

2009-06-02 | en

Forest for the Trees

Award-winning war photographer Rita Leistner goes back to her roots as a tree planter in the wilderness of British Columbia, offering an inside take on the grueling, sometimes fun and always life-changing experience of restoring Canada’s forests. Leistner, who has photographed some of the world’s most dangerous places, credits the challenge of tree-planting for her physical and mental endurance. In Forest for the Trees, her first feature film, she revisits her past to share the lessons she learned. The film introduces us to everyday life on the “cut-block” and the brave souls who fight through rough terrains and work endless hours to bring our forests to life. The rugged BC landscape comes to life magically in Leistner’s photography, while the quirky characters and nuggets of wisdom shared around the campfire tell a sincere story of community.

2021-11-18 | en

Seven Rivers Walking - Haere Mārire

Documentary about the degraded rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand.

2017-08-19 | en

Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea

The Salton Sea: An inland ocean of massive fish kills, rotting resorts, and 120 degree nights located just minutes from urban Southern California. This film details the rise and fall of the Salton Sea, from its heyday as the "California Riviera" where boaters and Beach Boys mingled in paradise to its present state of decaying, forgotten ecological disaster.

2006-02-24 | en

An Inconvenient Truth

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

2006-05-24 | en

The Smog of the Sea

The Smog of the Sea chronicles a 1-week journey through the remote waters of the Sargasso Sea. Marine scientist Marcus Eriksen invited onboard an unusual crew to help him study the sea: renowned surfers Keith & Dan Malloy, musician Jack Johnson, spearfisher woman Kimi Werner, and bodysurfer Mark Cunningham become citizen scientists on a mission to assess the fate of plastics in the world’s oceans. After years of hearing about the famous “garbage patches” in the ocean’s gyres, the crew is stunned to learn that the patches are a myth: the waters stretching to the horizon are clear blue, with no islands of trash in sight. But as the crew sieves the water and sorts through their haul, a more disturbing reality sets in: a fog of microplastics permeates the world’s oceans, trillions of nearly invisible plastic shards making their way up the marine food chain. You can clean up a garbage patch, but how do you stop a fog?

2017-02-05 | en

Stelvio: Crossroads of Peace

2014-04-28 | it

Filomena

The Filomena snowstorm in central Spain was undoubtedly exceptional. Its return period in many places exceeded half a century, particularly in Madrid. Despite accurate weather forecasts, Filomena brought roads, public transport, health centers, and other basic services in Madrid to a standstill. What went wrong in the management of this weather event?

2021-03-05 | es

Crude Oil

Filmed in the Inner Mongolian portion of the Gobi Desert, this film follows a group of oil field workers as they go about their daily routine.

2008-01-17 | zh

Tatort Ostsee - Wer sprengte die Nord Stream-Pipelines?

2023-09-26 | de

California Company Town

Lee Anne Schmitt explores California's landscape and past to document the history of one-time boom towns built and abandoned by the industries that necessitated their creation. Sold as a limitless land expansive with free opportunity, California was actually, from its onset, fissured by the interwoven needs of private and public interests. Schmitt's film covers various locations through time, as the major industries of the early 20th century (mining, lumber, oil) give way to the military, eventually leading to multinational corporations, and the use of small towns as satellites for growing urban metropolises.

2008-09-22 | en

Sacred Cod: The Fight for a New England Tradition

A documentary following the sharp decline of the cod fishing industry in New England. Included is an in-depth look at the potential causes and the resounding effects upon the lives of the fishermen themselves.

2016-01-01 | en

From the Ashes

Capturing Americans in communities across the country as they wrestle with the legacy of the coal industry and what its future should be under the Trump Administration. From Appalachia to the West’s Powder River Basin, the film goes beyond the rhetoric of the “war on coal” to present compelling and often heartbreaking stories about what’s at stake for our economy, health, and climate.

2017-04-26 | en

The Bell of Chornobyl

The first full-length film about the Chornobyl tragedy, filmed in May-September 1986. The authors did not set themselves the task of showing an exhaustive picture of what happened in Chornobyl. They sought to capture the testimonies of people directly involved in the tragedy, the lessons of which have yet to be realized.

1987-02-03 | ru

Uranium Drive-In

A new uranium mill -- the first in the U.S. in 30 years -- would re-connect the economically devastated rural mining community of Naturita, Colorado, to its proud history supplying the material for the first atomic bomb. Some view it as a greener energy source freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil, while others worry about the severe health and environmental consequences of the last uranium boom.

2013-05-25 | en