Continuing the sampling of winners from nine recent ecoFilm Festivals held across North America.
Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival (Jackson Hole, Wy.)
The Grand Teton Award winner – BROKEN TAIL
Filmmaker Colin Stafford Johnson spent over a year focused on a tiger cub he aptly named Broken Tail, in Rathambhore, an Indian wild tiger preserve. Then Broken Tail abandoned his sanctuary, disappearing into the Indian wilderness. The doc charts what happens when a man who spends his life filming wild tigers, takes on an obsessive search for the one who broke his heart.
Best Wildlife Habitat Program – RADIOACTIVE WOLVES
The 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear disaster created a wasteland where humans can’t live, but where animals have created a complete ecosystem and one of Europe’s largest wildlife sanctuaries — and it’s all radioactive. In this vast nuclear wilderness, packs of wolves live in an ancient structure that has vanished from other parts of the world. The film explores how the wolves have been affected by nuclear contamination 25 years after the explosion, which released 100 times more radio-nuclides than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Directed by Klaus Feichtenberger.
Yosemite Film Festival (Yosemite National Park, Ca.)
Best Educational Film – WHAT’S FOR DINNER?
In this video, filmmaker Jian Yi discusses the environmental and social effects of China’s rising meat consumption, which became the inspiration for his documentary.
Best Environmental Film – THE LAST WILD RACE
The Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race takes 14 teams through lands previously unseen by the human eye. The film follows the racers as they traverse through pristine southern Patagonia – trekking, climbing, kayaking, mountain biking and backcountry navigation. Beyond the thrills, the race aims to raise awareness of conserving the very landscape it crosses – the remote wilderness of Chilean Patagonia.
Best Nature Film – PICKING UP AMERICA
In March of 2010, four idealistic young people left Maryland and began a three-year trek across the U.S. picking up roadside trash every day. The film captures the challenges and the joys encountered as they work to promote a zero waste America. Directed by Marie Wicht and Michael Burke.
Green Screen International Film Festival (Vancouver, Ca.)
Best of Festival and Best Long Documentary – GREEN
Another multi-award winner at festivals around the world, this nearly wordless film (no narrator, just music and natural sounds) follows the fate of a female Orangutan named Green, who has been captured and brought in when her Indonesian forest home is decimated. The heartbreaking story exposes how logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations are devastating the rainforest – leading to the end of its biodiversity and the extinction of its orangutan. Directed by Patrick Rouxel.
UNAFF – United Nations Association Film Festival (San Francisco/Palo Alto, Ca.)
Selections from all over the world embrace the theme of human rights – here are two entries that address the theme from an environmental angle.
RIVER OF RENEWAL – USA
Eight years in the making, the film chronicles the ongoing battle over the future of Northern California’s and Oregon’s Klamath River Basin. For generations, different groups have extracted resources from it with disastrous consequences, heading to the collision between sustainability and commercial exploitation. The outcome may be the largest dam removal project in history and the restoration of a once vital river. Directed by Carlos Bolado.
WHEN THE WATER ENDS – Ethiopia/Kenya
For thousands of years, East Africa’s semi-nomadic pastoralists have followed fresh water sources and grazing land. But with the impacts of climate change, competition for water and pasture is escalating. Increased drought and decreased rainfall is fueling violent conflict over water and grazing lands. Produced by Jennifer Redfearn.
