John Murray/ 2015/ 74 min/ Food & Agriculture
FILM DESCRIPTION: A Farmer’s Road is a documentary about changing the American food system one meal at a time. At the heart of A Farmer’s Road is a story of how two PhD soil scientists traded the security of academic tenure at a major research university for the relentless challenges and economic uncertainty of operating a Grade A goat dairy and farmstead creamery in central Illinois.
Deia Schlosberg/ 2013/ 28 min/ Energy
FILM DESCRIPTION: Energy companies pursue increasingly difficult methods of fossil fuel extraction at increasing costs to the people and the environment. “Backyard” examines four states that are presently in different stages of hydro-fracking development. The results are several powerful stories of people at odds with the natural gas extraction occurring around them.
Dennis Delestra & Sandrine Feydel/ 2014/ 52 min/ Social Justice: Economy
FILM DESCRIPTION: Banking Nature is a provocative documentary that looks at the growing movement to monetize the natural world—and to turn endangered species and threatened areas into instruments of profit. It’s a worldview that sees capital and markets not as a threat to the planet, but as its salvation—turning nature into “natural capital” and fundamental processes such as pollination and oxygen generation into “ecosystem services.”
Bea Johnson/ 2015/ 8 min/ Waste, Recycling
FILM DESCRIPTION: Bea Johnson’s Zero Waste Home raises questions such as, how much do you throw away each year and how about each day? The numbers are mind boggling, but what if the waste you produced in a single year fit into a quart size jar? That’s what one family of four is doing!
Fredrik Gertten/ 2015/ 88 min/ Transportation
FILM DESCRIPTION: From bike activists in Sao Paulo and Los Angeles, who are fighting for safe bike lanes, to the City of Copenhagen, where forty percent commute by bike daily, Bikes vs Cars will look at both the struggle for bicyclists in a society dominated by cars and the revolutionary changes that could take place if more cities moved away from car-centric models.
Maarten van Rouveroy/ 2013/ 53 min/ Social Justice, Youth (Middle School +)
FILM DESCRIPTION: When the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise set sail to protest the first ever oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean, none of the people on board could have known what was coming. Seized at gunpoint by Russian special forces, the ‘Arctic 30’ were thrust into headlines all over the world, facing up to 15 years in prison and finding themselves at the centre of a bitter international dispute. Black Ice is a film about social justice and attendance is acceptable for middle school + aged viewers.
Jon Bowermaster/ 2015/ 7 min/ Energy
FILM DESCRIPTION: For many years, the Hudson river, like so many waterways, was treated like an infinite waste barrel, a receptacle for poisonous chemicals, hazardous waste and trash of all descriptions. However, in the past forty years, thanks to a committed group of environmentalists and their agencies (Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, Clearwater and more) the river has become markedly cleaner. While it is still an under-utilized natural resource, increasingly it is used by boaters, kayakers, even swimmers as a recreational playground. But the river has had a “foot on its neck” for one hundred years and still today, despite the efforts to clean it up, there are environmental risks and concerns.
Mark Titus/2014/ 85 min/ Water
FILM DESCRIPTION: When fishing guide and filmmaker Mark Titus learns why wild salmon populations plummeted in his native Pacific Northwest, he embarks on a journey to discover where the fish have gone and what might bring them back. Along the way, Titus unravels a trail of human hubris, historical amnesia and potential tragedy looming in Alaska – all conspiring to end the most sustainable wild food left on the planet. Visit The Breach‘s official site.
