Overburden

Plastic People

March 2024 •English

Are we becoming Plastic People? Our ground-breaking feature documentary investigates our addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics on human health. Almost every bit of plastic ever made ends up ground down into "microplastics". These microscopic particles drift in the air, float in the water and sit in the soil. And now, leading scientists are finding them in our bodies: organs, blood, brain tissue and even the placentas of new mothers. What is the impact of these invisible invaders on our health? Ziya Tong, author and science journalist, makes it personal by visiting leading scientists and undergoing experiments in her home, on her food, and on her body.

An Inconvenient Truth

May 2006 •English

A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

The Shetland Experience

January 1977 •English

The environmental measures taken by the oil industry at the Sullom Voe terminal in the Shetlands.

Before They Fall

August 2021 •English

Conservation groups, First Nations, and scientists come together in this timely short film, as a decades-long battle to protect endangered old-growth forests in BC escalates at Fairy Creek (the last unprotected, intact valley on southern Vancouver Island). The film explores the characters’ individual relationships with ancient forests, and why it’s imperative we collectively protect them. It touches on potential solutions, like a transition away from old-growth in the future of logging, and Indigenous sovereignty.

Radio Bikini

March 1988 •English

It starts with a live radio broadcast from the Bikini Atoll a few days before it is annihilated by a nuclear test. Shows great footage from these times and tells the story of the US Navy Sailors who were exposed to radioactive fallout. One interviewed sailor suffered grotesquely swollen limbs and he is shown being interviewed with enormous left arm and hand.

Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment

October 1991 •English

This 1991 Academy Award®-winning documentary uncovers the disastrous health and environmental side effects caused by the production of nuclear materials by the General Electric Corporation.

Un nuage sur le toit du monde

October 2008 •French

No Otter Zone

August 2012 •English

The Southern Sea Otter was historically abundant along the California coastline until intense hunting pressures reduced their numbers to near-extinction levels. But now the otters are coming back, and with them they bring the potential for drastic change to the modern-day economics and ecology of the Santa Barbara Channel.

The Sign of Doom

July 2022 •Indonesian

The pandemic has changed many things. Including Alfia, she is a teacher who has learned a lot from the phenomenon she saw. For Alfia, trash is no longer appropriate to be disposed of in its place.

The Giants

April 2023 •English

A portrait of environmental folk hero & gay icon Bob Brown, who took green politics to the center of power. His story is interwoven with the life cycle of the ancient trees he's fighting for.

The Greenhorns

October 2010 •English

Armed with a camcorder, farmer-filmmaker-activist Severine von Tscharner Fleming spent two years crisscrossing America, meeting and mobilizing a network of revolutionary young farmers resettling the land. 'The Greenhorns' is an ode to their grit and entrepreneurial spirit, an exploration of sustainable agriculture, and an enticement to reclaim our national soil. The ninety minute feature is the culmination of well over 200 hours of original footage from all regions of the United States, as well as original animation by young urban farmer and artist Brooke Budner, and rare agricultural archival footage from the Prelinger Archives. Ultimately, The Greenhorns shows us how farmers can move out of the margins recent history has consigned them to, and back to the heart of the American food landscape.

The Man Who Wanted to Change the World

October 2016 •Dutch

Peter Westerveld, artist and visionary, doesn’t want institutions to resolve the problems linked to earth’s problems. Growing up in Africa, he witnessed the advance of the desert and dedicated himself to finding solutions for the ongoing erosion and desertification of the land. The film follows Peter and the NGO working with him to realise his project; to build contour trenches that capture and store rain water under the surface and replenish the desert land.

Son of Torum

February 1989 •Estonian

In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.

Poison City

March 2003 •English

Dzerzhinsk, a Russian city 240 miles east of Moscow, is considered the most chemically polluted town on Earth. Factories producing industrial chemicals (and in Soviet times, chemical weapons) employ a quarter of the 300,000 residents in a city where life expectancy has fallen to 42-47 years, the death rate is 2.6 times higher than the birth rate, and the men are close to impotence. Reporter Tim Samuels recorded a series of in-depth interviews with the inhabitants of Dzerzhinsk for the Correspondent strand, revealing what life is like for the beleaguered populace.

Entangled

October 2020 •English

Efforts to protect North Atlantic right whales from extinction, the impacts of those efforts on the lobster industry, and how the National Marine Fisheries Service has struggled to balance the vying interests. There are now believed to be fewer than 400 right whales, making them among the planet’s most endangered species. Between millions of lobster lines and warming waters due to climate change, their population has been plummeting, and their survival is threatened. The federal government is proposing regulations which could reduce lobster lines by half in much of the Gulf of Maine and harm the livelihoods of many lobstermen and has sparked a political backlash. The future of the iconic species hangs in the balance.

Of Fish and Foe

April 2018 •English

The Pullars are the last family using traditional methods to fish for wild Atlantic salmon off the coast of Scotland. When these include killing seals, the salmon’s natural predators, conflict erupts. Animal activist groups Sea Shepherd and Hunt Saboteurs oppose the Pullars at every turn, despite the legality of the fishermen’s actions and the consequences to their livelihood. Challenging preconceptions, this ambiguous doc puts modern environmentalism under the microscope.

The Family of the Forest

Invalid date •French

In the heart of the Boreal forest lives a family renowned as much for their gourmet forest pickings as for their life of self-sufficiency.

Planted in 2020

December 2020 •English

Despite a workforce in quarantine, Canada planted almost 700 million trees in 2020 – the most ever. With future forests under threat, a young woman journies into the Canadian bush to endure a grueling and unconventional season of tree planting during a pandemic.

Chernobyl Heart

August 2003 •English

This Academy Award-winning documentary takes a look at children born after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster who have been born with a deteriorated heart condition.

Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea

February 2006 •English

The Salton Sea: An inland ocean of massive fish kills, rotting resorts, and 120 degree nights located just minutes from urban Southern California. This film details the rise and fall of the Salton Sea, from its heyday as the "California Riviera" where boaters and Beach Boys mingled in paradise to its present state of decaying, forgotten ecological disaster.