Cinema Verde 2013 Environmental Film Festival

A charismatic radio DJ in Hiroshima, is so disillusioned he wants to quit his job. The years have drained all the passion he had for speaking into a microphone and it's all he can do to turn up for work every day without being drunk. One day, the radio DJ saves a young girl who is about to fall off a bridge. This girl pleads with him not to leave radio because the radio helps connect people. But he doesn't believe her. But then a series of strange events that revolve around even stranger characters occur, and he is forced to a realization. The radio DJ start opening to the invisible connection between the radio and the people of Hiroshima in a magical way.

Co-executive producer, Jill Heinerth, who hails from Alachua County, has dived deeper into caves than any woman in history. Her accolades include being named a "Living Legend" by Sport Diver Magazine and being in the inaugural class of the Women Divers Hall of Fame. Imaginative, entertaining, and enlightening, We Are Water illustrates the fragile relationship between our planet's endangered freshwater resources and the ever increasing needs of more and more people: For the first time in history, fresh water has become a finite resource. Without big changes in water policy and use, wars of the future may be fought, not over oil, but water. This movie will show us how we can help Jill Heinerth to keep that from happening.

Combat veterans from the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan find a new mission and personal healing with new careers as organic farmers and ranchers.

From a series of outwardly inconvenient moments during my first time truly camping and doing so alone, I had the time to discover questions I wanted to bring to light. This film is as much a personal exploration as it is an essay, an ode to an island, and a poetic cracking open of ironies. I went to Cumberland Island at a strange point in my life with the idea of unearthing the controversy around the wild horses and retained rights. What I found, however, was an amazing contradiction in how we envision wilderness. I began the film during the end of my junior year of college and continued the piece as my senior thesis. It is not about right or wrong, black or white, or supplying a definite answer. I simply attempt to step back for a moment and think about the wild. To truly look at an idea we may think we so clearly understand, to question our preconceived notions and examine how we use our words. Thank you for your time, Gabriella Garcia-Pardo

Young filmmaker, Matthew J. Evans, takes a look at one of the most pressing issues in our modern society: violence among religions. Through discussions with Arun Gandhi, grandson of M.K. Gandhi, and local religious leaders from the Central Coast of California, Matthew learns powerful lessons about nonviolence, acceptance, and cultural understanding. As Gandhi has said, 'We must become the change we wish to see in our world!' This film helps us understand how we can make these changes. In 2014, A Quest For Peace: Nonviolence Among Religions received The Art Of Making Peace Award from the Peace in the Streets Global Film Festival. Producer/Director Matthew J. Evans received the award at the United Nations.

Water shortages, hunger, peak oil, species extinction, and even increasing depression are all symptoms of a deeper problem – addiction to unending growth in a world that has limits. This film goes way beyond prescribing a bandaid to slow the bleeding and examines the cultural barriers that prevent us from reacting rationally to the evidence that current levels of population and consumption are unsustainable.

A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet is the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement – grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years from conservation to climate change. Directed and written by Mark Kitchell, Academy Award-nominated director of Berkeley in the Sixties, and narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep, the film premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2012, has won acclaim at festivals around the world, and in 2013 begins theatrical release as well as educational distribution and use by environmental groups and grassroots activists. Inspired by the book of the same name by Philip Shabecoff and informed by advisors like Edward O. Wilson, A Fierce Green Fire chronicles the largest movement of the 20th century and one of the keys to the 21st. It brings together all the major parts of environmentalism and connects them. It focuses on activism, people fighting to save their homes, their lives, the future – and succeeding against all odds.

Nowadays, a great deal of the material we consume is brought from far away. Many of the products we consume and produce in the northern latitudes come from southern or impoverished countries where contaminating and precarious employment conditions are no obstacle and the cost to produce is cheaper. All of the environmental and social impacts taking place in southern countries due to our economic activity and high rate of consumption involve a debt: the ecological debt.

The story of the repercussions of human negligence juxtaposed against the incredible power of human compassion. A humpback whale entangled in a fishing net is left for dead until documentarians happen on the whale. Although untrained for such missions, they nonetheless work to rescue her and at the same time capture incredible up-close footage. Beautiful images of humpbacks swimming through the protected blue waters off Hawaii contrast with the whale in this story, concluding with a powerful statement: 'Change begins with the heart.'

It's not just 'Old MacDonald' on the farm anymore. All across the U.S. there is a growing movement of educated young people who are leaving the cities to take up an agrarian life. Armed with college degrees, some are unable to find jobs in the current economic slump. Fed up with corporate America and its influence on a broken food system, they aim to solve some of the current system's inequities by growing clean, fair food. Mostly landless, they borrow, rent or manage farmland in order to fulfill their dreams of doing something meaningful with their lives.

No classroom for these kindergarteners. In Switzerland's Langnau am Albis, a suburb of Zurich, children 4 to 7 years of age go to kindergarten in the woods every day, no matter what the weatherman says. The filmmakers follow the forest kindergarten through the seasons of one school year. This eye-opening film examines the important question of what it is that children need at that age. There is laughter, beauty, and amazement in the process of finding out.

Travel into both the No Go Zone of Fukushima and the reactions of the Japanese 7 months after the disaster. Photographer Alessandro Tesei succeeded in entering the forbidden area and gathered images and interviews with common people, politicians, and scientists, including explanations with great significance to the use of nuclear power.

Contrasting powerful forces opposing change with compelling stories of pioneering leaders and the patients they seek to help, this film exposes the perverse nature of American healthcare and explores whether there is a way out. It’s about saving the health of a nation

Drawing from ancient knowledge and cutting edge science, Symphony of the Soil is an artistic and intriguing exploration of the miraculous substance that is soil. We come to appreciate the complex and dynamic nature of this precious resource through illustrations of the elaborate relationships soil has with water, atmosphere, plants and animals. Filmed on four continents and featuring esteemed scientists and working farmers and ranchers, Symphony of the Soil highlights the possibility of healthy soil creating healthy plants creating healthy humans living on – and re-creating – a healthy planet.

Multiple interviews, thousands of miles of traveling and countless hours of editing, it is not another documentary that spoon feeds its audience, nor is it pandering to the lowest common denominator. The final story is one that tells of a piece of Florida history that never came to be. From Waterway to Greenway will have you asking the question of how other states and countries are preserving their lands – and how Floridians can continue to preserve their fragile ecosystem.

Reports on Costa Rica's ability to manage without a military since 1948, despite invasions based in Nicaragua. Addresses the role of private armies serving multinational corporations, and whether the country's civil guard is a military by another name. Places Costa Rica in the context of Central and Latin American populist struggles against US backed regimes in El Salvador, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua and Honduras. Touches on the colonial history and explores whether Costa Rica depends on US military backing, and whether it is able to maintain independence from the US.

Though focused on West Virginia, this film serves as a cautionary tale for a world heavily relying on fossil fuels and the hefty price it exacts from society. Responding to one of the worst yet least publicized industrial contamination disasters in the US, courageous Appalachians fight to defend their human right to clean water and persevere in their quest for truth and justice. Coal Rush dramatizes the human and societal costs to a democracy of relying on cheap energy and the environmental hazards that can affect any of us - rural or urban.

American billionaire Donald Trump has bought up hundreds of acres on the northeast coast of Scotland, and he needs to buy out a few more locals to reach his goal: In a land swimming with golf courses, Trump wants to build two more along with a 450-room hotel and 1,500 luxury homes. The trouble is, the land he has purchased occupies one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive stretches of coast, described by one leading scientist as Scotland’s Amazon rainforest . . . and the handful of local residents don't want it destroyed

Filmed in a fly-on-the-wall style, this raw and inspiring documentary follows 26-year-old Manoj Gautam, a modern day, third world hero on a passionate quest to protect animals and wildlife from cruelty and extinction. Inspired by the work of his mentor, Dr. Jane Goodall, and with minimal resources and no formal training, Gautam is creating a network of allies across the country, busting animal smugglers, protecting fragile ecosystems, rescuing abused animals, and galvanizing an environmental movement.

Voices of Transition is an enthusiastic documentary on farmer- and community-led responses to food insecurity in a scenario of climate change, peak oil, and economic crisis. Concrete examples from Cuba, France, and the United Kingdom tell of a future society where our monoculture deserts will be restored to living soil, where fields will be introduced into our cities, and where independence from oil will help us live a richer, more fulfilling life.

The region of La Huerta of Valencia in Spain has some of the world's most fertile soils and consists of a unique environment for both its scenic beauty and its agricultural heritage. In Europe, measures to protect native, nature-rich landscapes have broad public support, but that support rarely extends to agricultural lands, which also entail a cultural heritage seriously threatened by the globalized system of food exploitation. At present, the future of this Mediterranean landscape is at stake.

A meditation on urban green spaces and the post-industrial cityscape that explores a 1-acre rooftop organic farm in New York City. Connecting the built and natural environments, this film documents an imaginative experiment in green urban redevelopment attempting to transform the roof of a century-old former factory into a sustainable, pastoral haven.

This Argentine production depicts the conscious and subconscious energies that each one of us has, which have the ability to influence others, ourselves, and our surroundings -- positively and negatively. We all have seeds from our past and it is up to us to work to make them conscious and transform them positively. Our energy can be passed on to others, to close ones, strangers and places with a strength that we do not realize. It is an invisible force, which we are not always aware we have or that it has the power of changing the world and its environment. It is up to individuals and human society to channel this energy to allow our future earth to be healthy and prosperous.

Co-produced by the UN Development Programme, Discovery Asia, and Arrowhead Films, this film examines the effect the glacial ice melt has on human development in communities of Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, and Nepal. These countries are adapting, adjusting and preparing for their plight -- tomorrow’s inevitable changes in the Himalayan glaciers

Unfairly known as violent killers, pit bulls have suffered from the stigma of negative media coverage that has led to city-wide bans across the country. This breed-specific legislation has torn pets away from families and caused thousands of innocent dogs to be killed in cities like Denver, Miami, Cincinnati, and San Francisco. The film investigates the myths associated with this breed, challenges the idea that they are inherently vicious, and presents eye-opening research regarding the media’s role in influencing people’s opinion on dog attacks.

Three persons are separated by continents but united by a deep connection with nature and driven to confront some of the most pressing ecological challenges of our time. Sharing an unwavering commitment to protecting nature, these 3 people are complex, flawed, postmodern heroes for whom stemming the tide of environmental destruction fades in and out of view – part mirage, part miracle.

Set in the rugged landscape of coastal Newfoundland, Canada and the spectacular ranchlands of Southern Alberta, Canada, this intimate portrait of one of Newfoundland’s last remaining inshore cod fishermen portrays lessons he has to share with Alberta’s farmers. The stories of Bill Molloy and Norm Watmough provide a new understanding of the value of living off the land and the sea . . . and the consequences of taking both for granted.

Journey from the swamps of Louisiana to the slums of Kolkata in search of what really makes people happy. Combining real life stories of people from around the world and powerful interviews with the leading scientists in happiness research, this film explores the secrets behind our most valued emotion.