Saturday Evening Films

Boldly pioneering the environmental comedy genre, The Adventures of Oranges centers around a conversation between a Maui orange and a Florida orange in the produce section of a local grocery store. Through the telling of the Florida orange’s journey to Maui, the film reveals the comic absurdity of how far most of our food travels [...]

Louis Helbig is a Canadian artist specializing in aerial art photography. “Beautiful Destruction – Alberta Tar Sands Aerial Photographs,” uses a style, hovering between documentary, conceptual and abstract, to grapple with a controversial topic, not through editorializing but by providing viewers the space to reflect, imagine and think for themselves.

http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi462462489/ 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.The story of California State Parks holds the key moments within the history of conservation in America. The plot intersects with many important victories that saved much of [...]

  The City Dark is a feature documentary about light pollution and the disappearing night sky. After moving to New York City from rural Maine, filmmaker Ian Cheney asks a simple question, “Do we need the stars?” Exploring the threat of killer asteroids in Hawaii, tracking hatching turtles along the Florida coast, and rescuing injured [...]

A portrait of The Edible Schoolyard cooking and gardening program and its emphasis on the “Slow Food Movement,” as told by a former participant.

Daisy Cutter tells the story of a ten years old girl, Zaira, who (like many others) experiences the injustice of war, with the perspective that her tender and naive eyes allow her. Zaira gathers daisies every day for a friend that she misses; so as not to forget him, so as not to lose him.

The state of California is closing a quarter of its 268 state parks due to budget cuts. This is the first time in history the state has had to close its parks. The First 70 follows the journey of three young filmmakers traveling to each of the 70 parks marked for closure. Covering thousands of [...]

Food Stamped follows nutritionist Shira Potash and her documentary filmmaker husband, Yoav, as they attempt to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet on a food stamp budget. Shira teaches healthy cooking classes to elementary students in low-income neighborhoods, most of whom are eligible for food stamps. In an attempt to walk a mile in their shoes, [...]

Adapted from the poem by Brian Christian (author, THE MOST HUMAN HUMAN), HELIOTROPES offers a glance at how certain patterns repeat themselves at different levels of nature, whether we know it or not. Sunflower seeds and petals are known to follow the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical formula that makes their structure maximally efficient–but they don’t [...]

Journey of the Universe is a dramatic and expansive film that reimagines the universe story and reframes the human connection to the cosmos. Created by a renowned team of scientists, scholars, and award-winning filmmakers, it is beautifully filmed in HD on the Greek island of Samos, the birthplace of Pythagoras. Journey is hosted by evolutionary [...]

Mono Lake is one of the most beautiful and productive lakes on the planet, yet excessive water diversions by the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power threatened its ecosystem. A passionate grassroots campaign came to Mono Lake’s defense and through a monumental struggle, won its protection. The course of this historic effort transformed water [...]

MOTHER NATURE’S CHILD calls us to consider the future of that which we hold most dear: the health and well-being of our children. Visually rich, inflected with humor and the unexpected, the film examines the benefits of unstructured outdoor play, risk-taking, urban connection with nature, healthy rites of passage, the use of technology, and what [...]

El Salvador: Courageous farmers paid with their lives as they stood up against a transnational gold mining corporation to protect their fragile water resources. “The New Environmentalists” share a common goal – safeguarding the Earth’s natural resources from exploitation and pollution, while fighting for justice in their communities. The film is the latest in the Mill [...]

The Next, Best West shows how our interpretation of progress has shaped the singular landscape of the American West, and through three success stories from around the region, how a new understanding of progress may be our best hope for a bright and healthy future. The West is a place of pure beauty that has [...]

Welcome to the wildest competition known to man — the speed record on the Nose route of El Capitan. For 50 years, the best climbers in the world have been one-upping each other on this massive granite monolith in Yosemite National Park, racing up 3,000 feet of vertical rock in under three hours, and risking [...]

In the artificial landscape that is Los Angeles, where even palm trees are imported, nothing epitomizes man’s short-sighted efforts to reshape the face of the earth more than the LA River: modified beyond recognition, its flow tapped before it even reached the surface, the river was used, abused and essentially forgotten. But when an unassuming [...]

‘Roots & Hollers’ takes you deep inside the world of wild American ginseng. The legendary root has linked Asia to the Appalachian wilderness for centuries. Considered a cure-all, wild American roots sell for thousands of dollars in Asian markets. The film follows two budding businessmen, Jeremy Tackett and Terry Cable, as they try their luck [...]

If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children. The U.S. Government knew this in the 19th century when it forced Native American children into government boarding schools. Today, volunteers build schools in traditional societies around the world, convinced [...]

Second Nature: The Biomimicry Evolution explores biomimicry, the science of emulating nature’s best ideas to solve human problems. Set in South Africa, the film follows Time magazine “Hero of the Environment” Janine Benyus as she illustrates how organisms in nature can teach us to be more sustainable engineers, chemists, architects, and business leaders. After 3.8 [...]

In the high desert of South America, winter takes hold, devouring bleached bones and abandoned shacks. Into these most inhospitable of lands, a handful of drifters emerge from the whiteout, ready to cast their lot on forsaken peaks both merciless and magnificent. Venturing beyond the frontiers of most mountain films, Solitaire is backcountry skiing forged [...]

“Stories from the Gulf” is a powerful half hour documentary about the impact on gulf residents of the largest oil spill in American history. Narrated by Robert Redford, the movie is based on audio interviews produced by NRDC and Bridge the Gulf, recorded by StoryCorps, and stunning original documentary photography. The BP oil disaster contaminated [...]

I used MY natural resources to make a film about OUR natural resources! This short animated film uses the trimming of a beard to make a point about irresponsible usage of everything the Earth has to offer.

In Communist Czechoslovakia, it wasn’t so difficult to find a sense of freedom. All you needed was a backpack, a guitar, and a place to sleep under the stars. That has always been the escape strategy of the Czech tramps, outdoorsmen and women who hike, camp, canoe and ride the rails. Inspired by the American [...]

From a young age, Steve McGreevy was fascinated by the natural world and by amateur radio. When he discovered that nature produced its own radio signals, he began a quest to capture these sounds – a quest that has taken him to the most remote parts of the continent. Sometimes called the ‘Music of the [...]

This past World Food Day was marked by one of the worst famines in recent history. But, with the right planning and a few new ideas, it could be the last. Get the latest from the Horn of Africa and beyond in this special documentary report from Oxfam America and ViewChange.org. Featuring commentary by activist [...]

“White Water, Black Gold’ follows David Lavallee on his three year journey across western Canada in search of the truth about the impact of the world’s thirstiest oil industry. This is a journey of jarring contrasts, from the pristine mountain icefields that are the source of this industry’s water, to the Tar Sands tailings ponds. [...]

Technology can be addictive. In a tribute to Allen Ginsberg’s classic 1956 poem, we created a short film lampooning the addictions of our generation.

In this David and Goliath story for the 21st century, a group of proud Scottish homeowners take on a celebrity tycoon. At stake is one of Britain’s very last stretches of wilderness. The billionaire property developer Donald Trump has bought up hundreds of acres on the northeast coast of Scotland, best known to movie-lovers as [...]