Listed below are summary descriptions of films that were shown at Let’s Talk About Water events. Click on either the film title or on the specific [Read more] to see details about that particular film. The sidebar menus to the right list our past events and films on this site for which there are embedded video clips. You can also click on a specific Tag (e.g., sustainability) to obtain a sub-set of the films in the inventory that have that tag associated with them.
"13 Lakes is about light. About light falling from the sky onto water. I was facing the problem, to frame all lakes in the same way (half sky, half water) and capture their singularity at the same time." — James Benning Directed by James Benning, 135 min. 2004 (This video ...
Description: Tree planting is one of the most physically and mentally demanding jobs in Canada. Alone, working long days in desolate cut blocks, backing sun, rain storms, snow covered tents, bears, and endless bombardment of flies, swamps and mud, that’s tree planting in Northern Alberta. The independent documentary, 78 Days, ...
Description: Jan Schlichtmann, a tenacious lawyer, is addressed by a group of families. When investigating the seemingly non-profiting case, he finds it to be a major environmental issue that has a lot of impact potential. A leather production company could be responsible for several deadly cases of leukemia, but also ...
Description: A small clip of water quality and injustice issues in Maywood CA. Director: Ruben Silva Year: 2010 Length: 1.5 minutes Country: USA ...
Description: The Amazon is considered the “lungs” of the world and Amazon River runs through it. With deforestation, fires and overgrazing, the Amazon is being destroyed. But the government of Brazil has taken the lead on protecting this vast resource. Government agencies are working together with local communities to develop ...
Description: This is a logbook. A film which has been improvised. A poem that is slightly too long and made from other films parts, bits of sentences, pieces of music and sounds from all around. It was written in the language of cinema, without dialogue or commentary. It is both ...
Description: An Injury to One provides a corrective–and absolutely compelling–glimpse of a particularly volatile moment in early 20th century American labor history: the rise and fall of Butte, Montana. Butte, home of massive copper mining and hence saddled with a legacy of environmental destruction, provides the back drop to this ...
Directed by Manel Mayol 87 min. Spain, 2006 The Biobio is one of the longest rivers in Chile. It has its source in the Andes and flows into the Pacific ocean. This river is of enormous ecological value as well of great historical and political value because the Biobio was ...
Description: The camera pans from this detail of an Alpine-style wall painting to a firehouse – with subtle dripping in the background – and there it is, the archaic concept of water, which baptizes and feeds and helps things grow and protects. Josef Dabernig and Isabella Hollauf's Aquarena – a ...
Description: An animated fisheye view that could be a metaphor for the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Director: Sylvain Blond, Julien Cail, Quentin Ricci Year: 2009 Length: 3 minutes Country: Italy Distributor: ...
Description: As Above, So Below is a cinematic meditation on alchemy, mortality and trash. A woman in Philadelphia has her husband’s ashes converted into a memorial diamond. At a Belgian recycling plant, precious metals are extracted from discarded electronics. What was once the world’s largest landfill – now also the ...
Description: In the rural areas of Niger, most wells are dug the traditional way: with men lowered deep into the ground on a rudimentary rope harness. This documentary takes you to the center of the earth with them. Amani Mahamane is a Master Well-digger. He has dug 77 wells, his ...
Description: A close up view of life at an Oasis. Director: Gaumont Pathé Archives Year: 1920? Length: 5 minutes Country: France Distributor: ...
Sold live in vending machines and department stores, plastic replicas included as prizes in the equivalent of a McDonald's Happy Meal and the subject of the N°. 1 videogame, MushiKing, from the smallest backyard to the top of Mt. Fuji, insects inspire an enthusiasm in Japan seen nowhere else in ...
Description: Before the Flood documents the engrossing story of the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, once the world’s third-poorest country. In 1999, Tuvalu’s government sold its .tv Internet name for $25 million. The 11,000 citizens then spent $6 million tarring 19km of roads, to use their new petrol-powered cars and ...
A Toxic Comedy look at vinyl, the world's second largest selling plastic. With humor, hope and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director Daniel B. Gold travel from Helfand's hometown to America's vinyl manufacturing capital and beyond in search of answers about ...
Description: Despite being only fifteen years old, Vinh Voeurn has accepted his destiny – to be sick for the rest of life with incurable arsenic poisoning. He longs to fall in love with a girl with long, smooth hair. He fantasizes about becoming a karaoke star, winning the affections of ...
Description: In Kenya’s Western Province, most drinking water is contaminated. The wood many Kenyans use to boil this water to make it safe is increasingly valuable. Women and girls, who bear the responsibility for finding water and fuel, often miss school or work while seeking both fuel and water. Some ...
Description: This documentary film was made by students (age 18 – 25) from France and Quebec and focuses on water management in Provence. The students documented their experiences and impressions of Provence on a blog (carnetdevoyage.quebec.over-blog.com) and video. Director: Nathalie Kertchef Year: 2009 Length: 50 minutes Country: France Distributor: ...
Description: "Carpa Diem" wishes to shake consciences with a surrealistic approach by dealing with the phenomenon of wasting resources, in particular the most precious one: water. A small daily gesture which, multiplied by billions of people, could contribute to the saving of this precious resource, not only for human beings ...
Description: Oscar Nominated “Chasing Ice” is a landmark in cinematic achievement. Through the use of revolutionary time-lapse cameras, National Geographic photojournalist James Balog captures the eroding glaciers of the world. This eerie yet awe-inspiring documentary presents irrefutable evidence of global climate change. Once a skeptic, Balog realizes first hand the ...
Description: A silent melodrama set in Marseille, but not simply that: A cinematic wonder. “In water, crystals grow, beautiful as Venus, born as she was, full of the most secret graces, symmetries and correspondences. Games of Heavens, thus, worlds fall — from where? Into a light space.” (Jean Epstein) “In ...
Description: In Cold Pieces, Cho focuses on water, drawing from this broad theme an extended investigation into the mutability of pure form; water, after all, has no particular shape or size, only infinite variation. Characteristically, Cho's images telescope in scale, from rain-droplets on a puddle to endless ocean-swells rolling in ...
Description: The chemical composition of the water molecule H2O is what enables it to be a gas, a liquid and a solid. We will see the process of electrolysis separating the H’s from the O, and then back again. Water as matter, matters. Director: Gaumont Pathé Archives Year: 1910-1919 Length: ...
Description: “Hide and seek in a night-time labyrinth of levels, cascades, balustrades, grottoes and ever-gushing leaping fountains, until the Water Witch and the Fountain become one.” (Kenneth Anger) The pulsing and rhythmic movement of the fountains and the character in the gardens capture the motion of water from the mountains, ...
About the Film 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, ...
The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudi Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But is fracking safe When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for ...
Description: This documentary by director Jos de Putter is a future documentary, partly situated in the Netherlands in 2070. Our country turns out largely under water. Through a series of meetings with people involved in climate and water issues on large and small scale involved is reconstructed what it has ...
Description: A look at the port of Sfax across from Marseille — another world, another time, yet connected by the same body of water. Where did that salt come from? Director: Gaumont Pathé Archives Year: 1925 Length: 18 minutes Country: France Distributor: ...
Description: 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, the film features activist Erin Brockovich and such distinguished experts as Peter Gleick, Alex Prud’homme, Jay Famiglietti and Robert Glennon. This film exposes defects in ...
Directed by Stephanie Ayanian and Mark Cooper, 90 min. 2003, WPSU, State College, PA Liquid Assets tells the story of essential infrastructure systems: water, wastewater, and stormwater. These systems—some in the ground for more than 100 years—provide a critical public health function and are essential for economic development and growth ...
Description: Nominated for an Oscar and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for its musical score, Robert J. Flaherty’s (Nanook of the North, Man of Aran) last masterpiece is a visually stunning, lyrical tribute to a land and its people. A poetic vision of nature and the human spirit fills every ...
Description: In this short, lively film, we see water in its many forms and functions from the four corners of the world. Director: Gaumont Pathé Archives Year: 1938 Length: 3,27 minutes Country: France Distributor: ...
Description: We see Marseille in the past, between 1915 – 1920 with its port, streets, monuments, people, and beautiful light. Marseille is France, Provence, but also the Mediterranean. The city has inspired many films including: Fievre (Louis Delluc), The Fanny Triology (Marcel Pagnol), Le Rendezvous des Quais (Paul Carpita) and ...
Description: “The Mediterranean is an area of the Earth that has particularly preserved traces of the past evolutionary processes of our planet. Its geological history, conditioned by the movements of the African and Eurasian continental plates . . . led to the formation of mountain ranges that border the basin, ...
Description: Eric Mounier (director) and IRD (producer) “Sekou Bathily is an elevator repairman in Paris and he only has one goal in mind: To save Boda, his village in Mali, which is under threat of disappearing because of deforestation. Every year, he takes advantage of his holiday to visit his ...
Description: Author Colin Beavan, in research for his next book, began the No Impact Project in November 2006. A newly self-proclaimed environmentalist who could no longer avoid pointing the finger at himself, Colin leaves behind his liberal complacency and vows to make as little environmental impact as possible for one ...
Description: Of a Feather, by Rob Yeo, is a 10-minute lyrical portrait of the vibrant force of life, filmed over the course of a year in Wisconsin’s Horicon Marsh. Director: Rob Yeo Year: 2011 Length: 10 minutes Country: USA Contact: [email protected] ...
Dir. Francine Cavanaugh & Adams Wood, 81 min., U.S.A., 2010Friday 11, 7:00 PM · Thursday 17, 7:00 PM. ON COAL RIVER takes viewers on a gripping emotional journey into the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, a community surrounded by lush mountains and a looming toxic threat. The local school ...
Description: Peace Out asks and answers the question: are we ripping up our back yard for energy – or not? The film seeks to engage those of us who do not connect our daily decisions with global land use issues. It focuses on the North Western Canadian wilderness, however the ...
Dir. Charles and Ray Eames, 9 min., U.S.A., 1977Friday 11, 9:00 PM · Monday 14, 4:00 PM. POWERS OF TEN takes us on an adventure in magnitudes and wholeness. Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago, this famous film transports us to the outer edges of the universe ...
Description: This video is about how water harvesting is important to do when whole india is facing water scarcity. Director: Pushpam Singh Year: 2007 Length: 1.5 minutes Country: India Distributor: Center for Science and Environment ...
Description: Reading the Water is an experimental “home video” and personal-poetic essay that mobilizes the coast of Maine–the sandbox of Vollmer’s youth and his marine biologist and naturalist professor-photographer father’s area of expertise–as a metaphor for exploring the depths and masculine relationships and family ecosystem sustainability across three generations of ...
Description: Trance dance and water implosion, a line drawn between secular freak-outs and religious phenomena. Shot in a single-take at a sacred site on the Upper Suriname River, the minor secrets of an animist are revealed as time itself is undone. Rites are the new Trypps, embodiment is our eternal ...
Description: Slovenian artist Andrej Zdravic brings us a magical underwater realm via a pristine river, the Socca, that flows from the Julian Alps of his homeland. Coursing pearlescent bubbles, shifting shades of aquamarine, the sun poking at the river's membrane, stones that roll and roil boundlessly. Director: Andrej Zdravoc Year: ...
Description: Rivers and Tides depicts the magical relationship between art and nature while painting a visually intoxicating portrait of famed artist Andy Goldsworthy. Gorgeously shot and masterfully edited, the film follows the bohemian free spirit Goldsworthy all over the world as he demonstrates and opens up about his unique creative ...
Description: The documentary shows the devastating toll past uranium mining has had on the Navajo people and discusses the potential risks posed by a renewal of uranium mining. It lays out the complex and conflicting economic, political, environmental and spiritual issues involved. However, this documentary in no way portrays the ...
Description: The Arctic plains are an eminent example of nature’s untouched beauty: an endless nothing in which only few know how to survive. But dangerous pesticides are silently accumulating here, poisoning its inhabitants. A young Inuit woman investigates the sources of this pollution. Her journey takes her to three different ...
Directed by Robert Salyer, 41 min., U.S.A., Appalshop Films Shortly after midnight on Octoher 11, 2000, a coal sludge pond in Martin County, Kentucky, broke through an underground mine. propelling 306 million gallons of sludge down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River into the Big Sandy. ThP Martin County ...
Dir. Robert Smithson, 32 min., U.S.A., 1970Friday 11, 9:00 PM · Monday 14, 4:00 PM. This film, made by the artist, Robert Smithson is a poetic and process minded film depicting a "portrait" of his renowned earth work--SPIRAL JETTY--as it juts into the shallows off the shore of Utah's Great ...
Description: The first part (winter) of a seasonal study of the Hudson river in New York. Director: Peter Hutton Year: 1996-1997 Length: 13 minutes Country: USA Distributor: Canyon Cinema in San Francisco ...
Description: Sun Come Up follows the relocation of some of the world's first environmental refugees, the Carteret Islanders - a community living on a remote island chain in the South Pacific Ocean. When rising seas threaten their survival, the islanders face a painful decision: they must leave their beloved land ...
Description: Planting trees for fuel, shade, and food is not something that anyone would imagine as the first step toward winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet with that simple act Wangari Maathai, a woman born in rural Kenya, started down the path that reclaimed her country’s land from 100 years ...
TAR CREEK is the story of the worst environmental disaster you've never heard of: the Tar Creek Superfund site. Once one of the largest lead and zinc mines on the planet, Tar Creek is now home to more than 40 square miles of environmental devastation in northeastern Oklahoma: acid mine ...
Made by The United States Forest Service The Junior Raindrop film was made by the United States Forest Service in 1948 as a way to explain the need for good watershed management. At the time, it had some of the most cutting edge graphics in it's category. "The Adventures of ...
Description: Filmed primarily in Alaska, The Aquarium contrasts the openness of the primeval Arctic landscape with the entrapment of captured sea mammals in aquariums. It speaks of the progressive destruction of these animals’ habitat, seeing beyond the alluring spectacle. View the Trailer Director: Pawel Wojtasik Year: 2006 Length: 23 minutes ...
When Annie Leonard and her friends at Free Range Studios set out in 2007 to share what she’d learned about the way we make, use and throw away Stuff, they thought 50,000 views would be a good result for her ‘20-minute cartoon about trash.’ Today, with over 15 million views ...
Description: The American dream of owning a house with a white picket fence goes head-to-head with environmental sustainability in this urgent, beautifully crafted documentary. When an ambitious real estate developer sets out to transform thousands of acres of pristine hill country around Austin, Texas into a suburban development threatening a ...
Description: A documentary that focuses on the aftermath of the avian flu threat in the National Botanical Garden of Belgium during the summer of 2006. Up until then vast geese populations resided in this botanical garden. However, the birds both disrupted the local ecosystem and posed a potential health hazard ...
Directed by Amy Hart, 25 min., U.S.A., Bullfrog Films Through the inspiring story of Charles Banda, a local fireman turned waterman who has drilled over 8OO wells for impoverished communities in Malawi, it becomes apparent why clean water should be first if we are genuinely committed to reaching the Millennium ...
Description: A brilliant idea finds a comfortable home in a beautifully crafted spot, brought to you by Mato Atom. This work doesn’t require any comments, as it’s subtle simplicity speaks for itself. WWF - We Are All Connected from Mato Atom on Vimeo. Director: Mato Atom Year: 2011 Length: 1 ...
Dir. Laura Israel, 81 min., U.S.A., 2010Sunday 13, 2:00 PM · Monday 14, 7:00 PM. What do we really know about wind power? We are told it's "green energy" and reduces our dependency on foreign oil. That's exactly what the people of Meredith in upstate New York thought when a ...
Description: Sardar Sarovar, an impressive cement wall of 121 meters in height, stops river Narmada's flow. It is part of the faraonic "Narmada Valley Development Project", that plans the construction of more than 3000 dams, some of them of huge dimensions. Over two and a half million people are affected, ...