8 Billions: We Are All Responsible
Ancestral Rivers
Bringing the Salmon Home
BRINGING THE SALMON HOME is the story of three Indigenous Nations who are upholding their sacred responsibility to reintroduce the salmon, working with US Tribal relations and allies along the river. First person stories are combined with vivid landscape and underwater salmon footage, and archival film reels, to tell the long-hidden story of these Salmon People. The losses have been immense. Nation members recount how they were offered tins of Spam as they were starving from the lack of salmon, at the same time as their children were wrenched from their homes through a genocidal Indian residential school system. Today the Syilx Okanagan, Secwépemc, and Ktunaxa Nations are working to bring the salmon home, for the benefit of all.
BRINGING THE SALMON HOME offers new beginnings while acknowledging the past. It prompts necessary reflection and action to support self-determination and decolonization. It proposes early steps towards understanding what reconciliation requires. Of working collaboratively through an Indigenous-centred process that includes all Columbia River basin residents. Of finding solutions to complex challenges by combining traditional Indigenous knowledge and western science, and cultural renewal. This is a vital film that calls on the inspiration and commitment of present and future generations.
DISCONNECTED: A Journey With "Ocean Missions"
When he got in touch with Belen Garcia Ovide from "Ocean Missions Iceland", he decided to join their sailing expedition, whose goal is to raise awareness about our oceans and marine life. On this journey we perceive the forces of the ocean, its sensitive fragile ecosystems and how fundamental our relationship with them is. You will gain insight into the work of the "Ocean Missions" crew and learn why their expeditions are a great way to travel with a better purpose.
Hell and Highwater
House of Adaptation
The documentary film takes the viewers on a journey through the minds of all the people that gave life to this project: politicians, designers and builders. Why would you build a floating building in the middle of the city and what does it have to do with climate politics? The film contains the answers to these questions, gives a sneak peek into the board rooms of GCA and holds a place for the legendary mayor of Rotterdam: Ahmed Aboutaleb.
Invisible Landscapes
A group of musicians equipped with sensitive microphones and headphones set out on an exploration. They head to places in the Czech and Icelandic countryside, either marred by industry or untouched by man, to discover and understand the sound of catastrophe – the sound of ongoing climate change – which, in and of itself, can be far more beautiful, and more imaginative, than what it heralds.
While sight allows phenomena and things to be encompassed in a static state and in a certain entirety, hearing allows us to understand how the sounds affect and clash with their surroundings. Sound is the consequence of an event that happened in the past and points towards a future now being decided, one that may potentially be inevitable and destructive for us. It cannot yet be seen in the invisible landscapes, but – if we listen carefully – it is already there.
Mapping Survival
Raid on the Atlantic
Samqwan: Water
This short doc was adapted from a podcast I created for imagineNATIVE 2022 for the FLOW exhibit. I decided to take that podcast and turn it into a short, educational documentary with a powerful call to action take-away for viewers.
I specifically designed it for a social media audience in terms of how people absorb social media content. Many social platforms are designed around fast-paced, short content that is visual, auditory and that can maintain the viewers attention by consistently changing the visual components every 8 seconds or less.
Similarly, the visual content is expected to keep pace with the narration - matching images to words. The reason the documentary was done this way, is to increase audience size and accessibility, and thus increase the impact of my call to action.
The only way to save the water is for Canadians and Americans to join with Indigenous peoples while we protect the water for all life on Mother Earth. #waterislife
Soolerikaatukuppam, A Fisherfolk Village
Undersea
UNDERSEA is an inspiring portrait of an extraordinary woman’s inner life, rich with beautiful footage from the underwater world where she has finally found a home.
The Water Network of the Earth
THE WATER NETWORK OF THE EARTH originates in the canals in Taoyuan, Taiwan. and combines the issue of water shortages with the development and usage of water resources to show how our ancestors created a water network with canals, dug ponds where artesian springs are, and canals where rivers are. In the past 300 years, we discover how they created an artificial water network to deal with the natural issue of water shortages and turned a wasteland into fertile farmland with water from the faraway mountains.
THE WATER WILL TAKE US
WINDSHIPPED
The Oceans 8 Films team had been following the progress of rebuilding the boat and filming began at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in May 2020. That Sam’s Quixotic vision would be successful was never guaranteed, especially in these days when everyone, it seems, needs everything overnight, or faster (thanks to Amazon!). Sam’s way, by sail-power, takes a purposely slower view, if just as efficient. Today it is the only sail-freight boat operating in United States waters.