2008 Festival

The American Chestnut (2008, Thomas Nassif)
A hundred years ago, one out of four trees in the Appalachian forests was an American chestnut. Some towered up to 100 feet tall and had diameters greater than 10 feet. The magnificent trees dominated the forested hills and mountains over much of the eastern U.S. Then came the lethal chestnut blight. By 1950, billions of American chestnut trees had been killed by this exotic fungus. Now only rare sprouts remain, clinging to life. This film is a journey through the research and rediscovery of this species and the scientists who have made it their mission to find a way to bring the American chestnut back.

American Outrage (56 minutes, 2007, Gage & Gage Productions)
Two grandmothers, Carrie Dann and Mary Dann, have been at the forefront of the Western Shoshone Nation's struggle for land rights and sovereignty for nearly 40 years. American Outrage documents their fight against the U.S. government's unlawful attempts to take over traditional Shoshone land in Nevada, part of 60 millions acres guaranteed to them in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. The  Dann sisters have endured steady harassment from the Bureau of Land Management and squared off against international gold mining corporations and the nuclear industry. Their courage and perseverance in asserting the rights of indigenous peoples won them the 1993 Alternative Nobel Prize and the International Right Livelihood Award.

The Artisanal Fisher (13 minutes, 2008, James D. Broesch)
Over 200 million small-scale fishermen feed 1.5 billion humans. Is this lifestyle sustainable?

Beyond the Blue (8 minutes)
A sensational world premiere exploring the magic of underwater fluorescence and the ability of marine animals to transform themselves from one color to another.  Some of the most breathtaking underwater cinematography ever seen.

Burning the Future: Coal in America (89 minutes, 2007, David Novack)          
Writer/director David Novack examines the troubling forces behind the conflict between the coal industry and residents of West Virginia. Confronted by a U.S. energy policy and West Virginia government that critics say genuflects to the coal industry, local activists watch the nation praise coal without regard to the devastation caused by its extraction. Faced with toxic ground water, the obliteration of 1.4 million acres of mountains, and a government that appeases industry, residents of coal counties take their battles beyond the Mountain State’s borders to the halls of power and centers of commerce and culture.   

Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge (10 minutes, 2008, Ryan Hagerty)
A moving examination of the cultural and natural history of this unique corner of West Virginia.  This unique ecosystem recently became the 500th National Wildlife Refuge. After viewing this film you will understand why.

Carpa Diem (2 minutes, 2006, Sergio Cannella)
An apartment.  Bedtime.  A little girl lovingly watches her fish swimming in the aquarium, while her younger brother is playing in the bathroom, listening to music and letting water run into the sink.  A waste of water that could turn tragic. . . a brilliant short from Italy’s Sergio Cannella.
                                                           
China: A Memoir of Our Future (12 minutes, 2008, Kerin Jaros-Dressler)       
A group of students from Eastern Connecticut State University travel to China to discover its economy, culture, history and environment.  In the process they discover the unexpected.

Colour Talks  (8 minutes, 2007, Liquid Motion Films)     
In a teeming social world of camouflage and display, marine animals talk in a language we do not yet understand  In a groundbreaking step toward learning to listen, Colour Talks unravels the mystery of funderwater color, and brings a revolutionary understanding of the language of fish.              

Dope Spider
Natural history meets pyschedelia in this hilarious short. (some PG-13 Language)

Everything's Cool (89 minutes) 
Now that America is finally grasping the reality of global warming, a group of global warming messengers are on a high-stakes quest to find the iconic image, the magic language, the points of leverage that will finally create the political will to move the United States from its reliance on fossil fuels to the new clean energy economy -- and fast.

The Final Frontier (3 minutes, 2007, Colin Bombard)     
Student animator Colin Bombard delivers this thought provoking animation of robots set in a far way time and land.

Fish and Cow: A Story of Restoring the Upper big Hole Valley (2007, Rick Smith)
Student Film makers Geoff Stephens and Rick Smith tell the tale of herritge, cooperation,  success, and restoration in the Upper Big Hole Valley watershed, a place where people, cows and trout can live in harmony.

FLOW: For the Love of Water
Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century: the world water crisis.  Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.  Flow introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the worldwide water grab, and asks the question, "Can anyone really own water?"            

In the Valley of the Wolves   (53 minutes,   2007, WNET/Nature)           
In 1995, the first gray wolves were transported from Alberta, Canada to Yellowstone National Park to repopulate the sprawling landscape with the species, absent for more than 70 years. The following year a second wave of wolves were brought to the park from British Columbia, Canada. Five of them were released together, and they were named the Druid Peak pack. Since the arrival of those first immigrants, wolves have thrived in Yellowstone. Emmy Award-winning wildlife cinematographer Bob Landis has created a stunning film chronicaling one year in the rugged wilderness of Yellowstone National Park.

King Corn (90 minutes, Curt Ellis)  
King Corn is the story of  two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. Best friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis  move from the East Coast to the heartland to learn where their food comes from.  With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they  grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. When they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge (12 minutes, 2008, Doug Canfield)
Discover the largest bears in North America as they explore and dominate this pristine Alaskan wilderness.

The Lord God Bird (90 minutes)
The ivory-billed woodpecker had been presumed extinct for decades. Then came the report in  spring of 2005 that the ivory-billed woodpecker had been discovered deep in the swamps of Arkansas. The rarest of rare birds, the ivory-bill is so spectacular that according to folk legend those who see it spontaneously cry out "Lord God!"  For most Americans the discovery came as a piece of rare good news from the conservation front. But to the inner circle of bird enthusiasts it was the latest installment in a legendary tale of hope and survival. Made in association with The Nature Conservancy, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and National Geographic Feature Films, this strikingly beautiful film, with music by Paul Cantelon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), is the first in a planned trilogy of films dealing with extinction by director George Butler.

Message in a Bottle (1 minute, 2007, Desiree Gordian)
Part of the Urban Visionaries film festival, this short examines the choices between littering and survival.

A Moment of Clarity, (2007, Sarah Cowley & Louise Dickinson) 
A visually impressive film from New Zealand student Sarah Cowley and Louise Davidson, this first person natural history account chronicals the rat population of New Zealand, all from the perspective of the Rat.

Peace with Seals (60 minutes)
Meet Gaston the Seal, the "most famous animal in Europe." Gaston is the entry point to examining Europe’s wildlife losses and increasingly decimated waterways. An original, humorous, and very European look at how humans and wildlife interact (Brief Nudity).

A Place to Land (30 minutes, Lauren DeAngelis)
American University student Lauren DeAngelis examines the difficulties of owning pet parrots by exploring parrot rescue groups, including Virginia-based Phoenix Landing.

Plight of the Puffin (14 minutes, Maria Frostic)
Producer Maria Frostic traveled to Iceland to document the Puffin and their struggle to survive on islands they have lived on for thousands of years. With the reality of rising water temperatures the puffins and the people who have come to rely on these birds face a new challenge: how to survive.

Pollinators in Peril (47 minutes, 2000, Rhett Turner
Pollinators like bees, birds, bats and insects are essential to the world's food supply, but many species are in threatened with extinction. Producer Rhett Turner teams up with actor Peter Fonda on a to travel the world in search of the most endangered pollinators and show us what we can do to help the populations of these critical species.

Red Gold (54 minutes, Ben Knight, Travis Rummel; Felt Soul Media and Trout Unlimited Alaska)
Imagine a pristine Alaskan watershed with the most productive Sockeye salmon rivers in the world, teeming with millions of native fish pushing up river to spawn. Now imagine the world's largest open pit gold and copper mine at their headwaters. Produced by Ben Knight and Travis Rummel of Felt Soul Media and Trout Unlimited Alaska, Red Gold explores the proposed Pebble Mine; it is told through the voices of commercial, subsistence and sport fishermen of Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Seed Hunter (46 minutes, Smithsonian Network)
One of the first casualties of global warming will be food crops. Australian scientist Ken Street and his team of ‘gene detectives’ are hunting for plant genes that could help our food withstand the impact of 21st century global warming. Seed Hunter is a remarkable journey from the drought ravaged farms of Australia, to the heart of the Middle East, to the mountains of Tajikistan, to secure planet saving plants and store the bounty in the newly constructed seed bank known as the ‘doomsday vault.’ Along the way they meet farmers struggling to grow crops in a climate gone haywire, and scientists working at the front line of gene technology to save tomorrow’s food.

Sweetness & Light (30 minutes, 2008, Stefanie Misztal)
Montana graduate student Stefanie Misztal hones her story telling skills as she interviews family and friends to explore the elusive relationship between science, religion and nature.

Understory (27 minutes, 2008, Jake Williams)
Student producers Jake Williams and Heather Altier document Eastern Connecticut State University students as they travel to the Mexico’s rainforest and learn first hand from working scientist about the pressures this delicate ecosystem is facing.

Waste=Food (51 minutes, 2006, Ron Van Hattum; First Run/Icarus)
Rob van Hattum's award-winning documentary explores how companies like Nike, Herman Miller and Ford are experimenting with ways completely reinvent how products are designed, made, and used. Following the concept that "waste equals food," a new industrial philosophy is emerging that promotes clean and sustainable production, a world where every ingredient in every product is designed to be re-used. It's an idea that is triggering a new industrial revolution among designers and manufacturers.

Where do Children Play? (60 minutes, 2007, Christopher Cook)
An examination of how restrictive patterns of sprawl, congestion, and endless suburban development across America are impacting children's mental and physical health and development.

ZooVets (46 minutes, Smithsonian Networks)
Zoo Vets goes behind the scenes of the National Zoo and shows us the lives and the work of the people who care for the sick animals. Perfect for children and the whole family.