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Stuck In The Middle With You

Stuck In The Middle With You

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Stuck In The Middle With You
Haven't got a lot of time? Check out these mid-length films with a message that will move you.
8 Billions: We Are All Responsible 8 Billions: We Are All Responsible

8 Billions: We Are All Responsible

In 8 BILLIONS: WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE, Ailton Krenak, Indigenous leader and thinker, talks about the pain of the Watú (or Rio Doce in the Krenak language). Sick with the biggest environmental disaster in Brazilian history, the Mariana Dam disaster, the river asks for help. From the impacts on his village on the banks of the river, he creates an overview of the current Anthropocene period and invites all human beings to a collective journey of reflection and self-criticism, aiming at the urgent but necessary paradigm shifts.
29 minutes
Ancestral Rivers Ancestral Rivers

Ancestral Rivers

ANCESTRAL RIVERS explores the Indigenous Youth River Guide Training (IYRGT) program that aims to remove barriers and create opportunities for youth to learn land-based skills such as flat-water and whitewater canoeing, wilderness medicine and whitewater rescue training in order to become wilderness guides. The goal is to improve self-esteem, leadership, self-determination and expose youth to potential career opportunities all while centering Indigenous languages and knowledge. This is the first IYRGT cohort's story.
23 minutes
Bringing the Salmon Home Bringing the Salmon Home

Bringing the Salmon Home

The iconic river of the west, the mighty Columbia River, was once the source of the greatest salmon runs in the world. But massive dams have blocked salmon from returning to the vast headwaters of the upper Columbia River in Canada for over 80 years.

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.
30 minutes
DISCONNECTED: A Journey With "Ocean Missions" DISCONNECTED: A Journey With "Ocean Missions"

DISCONNECTED: A Journey With "Ocean Missions"

DISCONNECTED is a film by Florian Seltmann, a filmmaker from Germany. He tells about his feelings that have preoccupied him in recent years and why he wants to give a new meaning to his films.

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.
25 minutes
Hell and Highwater Hell and Highwater

Hell and Highwater

In 2021, several communities in BC experienced both Hell and Highwater. This short film gives context to Indigenous communities struggling with trauma in all it's forms and calls out colonialism for it's ongoing challenges.
24 minutes
House of Adaptation House of Adaptation

House of Adaptation

The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an NGO working on adapting the world to a changing climate. When looking for a place for their headquarters, the city of Rotterdam proposed to donate them a building that will float with the rising sea levels.

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.
41 minutes
Invisible Landscapes Invisible Landscapes

Invisible Landscapes

INVISIBLE LANDSCAPES explores how sound tells the climate story of the future. It sounds like a bird’s song, and you can't take your ears off it. But it's not – it’s just the popping bubbles of a melting glacier.

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.
48 minutes
Mapping Survival Mapping Survival

Mapping Survival

This is the story of how a nomad in Chad, while advocating for the rights of her community, has become a leader in the fight against climate change and a voice for Indigenous people across the planet.
31 minutes
Raid on the Atlantic Raid on the Atlantic

Raid on the Atlantic

West African waters have been overexploited for more than 40 years, largely by foreign fleets from Europe, Russia and Asia. The collapse of fish stocks threatens fishermen and their families, an important part of Senegalese society.
52 minutes
Samqwan: Water Samqwan: Water

Samqwan: Water

SAMQWAN: WATER is a short documentary about the current threats to the world's water systems from the extractive industry, and the need for us to support Indigenous water protectors on the front lines of protecting the earth's water sources. It is set within the context of my home reserve - Eel River Bar First Nation - and the water sources on Mi'kmaw territory.

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
19 minutes
Soolerikaatukuppam, A Fisherfolk Village Soolerikaatukuppam, A Fisherfolk Village

Soolerikaatukuppam, A Fisherfolk Village

This film documents an effort to understand how a broken water network is technologically mended despite the risk to disadvantaged groups in society.
30 minutes
Undersea Undersea

Undersea

For years Nanna Kreutzmann worked as a photojournalist, documenting disasters and conflict around the world. Eventually the enormity of wars, tsunamis and bloody revolutions created an inner trauma, and forced her to leave her former life behind. But when Kreutzmann discovered freediving, she found her sanctuary. In the underwater world of peace, she began documenting the community that embraced her, at the time of her distress.

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.
52 minutes
The Water Network of the Earth The Water Network of the Earth

The Water Network of the Earth

Taiwan is an island of mountains that capture moisture and cause rainfall. Valleys come with mountains and when the water flows down the hillsides of these valleys, it is captured to form rivers and streams. However, in the steepest terrains, when it rains heavily and suddenly, the water level will rise in an instant and flow to the sea, while the land remains as dry as usual. How do we respond to a situation like this?

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.
49 minutes
THE WATER WILL TAKE US THE WATER WILL TAKE US

THE WATER WILL TAKE US

THE WATER WILL TAKE US tells the story of the victims of the flood of 2019 in Iran, which happened in the three provinces of North, Central and South of the country and left a lot of damages. The main narrators are three women who reveal the causes of this incident and mismanagements and tell the story of the people who were left to fend for themselves during the flood and after.
42 minutes
WINDSHIPPED WINDSHIPPED

WINDSHIPPED

Captain Sam Merrett has seen a dream come to life as his 65-foot, metal-hulled sail freight boat, ‘The Apollonia’, has successfully completed three seasons delivering cargo – largely malt, grain, corn, pumpkins and red oak – from Hudson to New York City and back without burning fossil fuels, using only the wind and sun to propel and navigate.

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.
39 minutes

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