Something in the Air is a one hour documentary that shows new risks in the most essential element for survival – air – that affect our brains, our DNA, and how new technology is changing the equation for the better.
David Suzuki
as Self - Narrator
On England’s North East coast, where rivers, heavy industry and the sea have shaped lives for generations, fisherman Stan Rennie is watching the world he knows disappear. His family have worked these waters for generations. Then, almost overnight, thousands of dead crabs and lobsters wash ashore, and a community already living with uncertainty is pushed into crisis. Teesside filmmaker Jeanie Finlay brings warmth, wit and deep local feeling to this David-and-Goliath story of environmental damage, official evasions and working-class resilience. At its centre is Stan: funny, stubborn, vulnerable and increasingly determined to be heard.
“An Imminent Threat” follows a fisherman activist, Yngve Larsen, who fights against oil and gas drilling activities in north of Norway. Will Yngve succeed in avoiding the extinction of many species of fish and thus irreversible damage to our planet?
A journey into four classical elements through the four main characters of the film. The main characters in the movie represent each of their own elements.
Before starting a family, Soozie Eastman, daughter of an industrial chemical distributor, embarks on a journey to find out the levels of toxins in her body and explores if there is anything she or anyone else can do to change them. She has just learned that hundreds of synthetic toxins are now found in every baby born in America and the government and chemical corporations are doing little to protect citizens and consumers. With guidance from world-renowned physicians and environmental leaders, interviews with scientists and politicians, and stories of everyday Americans, Soozie uncovers how we got to be so overloaded with chemicals and if there is anything we can do to take control of our exposure.
For five days in December 1952, a thick smog suffocated the British capital causing the death of thousands of Londoners. The health catastrophe lead to a realisation, in Britain and around the world, that air pollution was a serious threat to human health. This documentary reveals what happened, hour by hour, in one of the worst peacetime disasters of the 20th century.
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.
A cartoon film about the whole heterogeneous mixture of Canada and Canadians, and the way the invisible adhesive called federalism makes it all cling together. That the dissenting voices are many is made amply evident, in English and French. But this animated message also shows that Canadians can laugh at themselves and work out their problems objectively.
Produced by Alfred Higgins Productions with assistance from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Academic Support Center Film Library, Keep America Beautiful, Inc., and Keep Los Angeles Beautiful, Inc., the 1963 short film A Land Betrayed examines the various ways people have spread the “cancer of ugliness” across America and offers call-to-action solutions to combat the nation-wide problem.
In Leven met de belt (Life With A Rubbish Heap), filmmaker Rosemarie Blank portrays with great empathy the residents of the Volgermeerpolder near Broek in Waterland in The Netherlands. They live with the physical and psychological consequences of a toxic waste dump on their doorstep.
Gas flaring has long been known to be both a major polluter and a serious health hazard. In Iraq, it's ruining ordinary people's lives, leaving communities ravaged by abnormally high levels of cancer. With oil giants like BP using a loophole to avoid reporting emissions, and governmental promises to end the practice ringing hollow, what will it take to eradicate toxic pollution from Iraq's skies?
More than two decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America’s waters clean enough for swimming and fishing again, two iconic waterways — the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay — are in perilous condition. With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, scientists fear contamination to the food chain and drinking water for millions of people. A growing list of endangered species is also threatened in both estuaries. As a new president, Congress and the states set new agendas and spending priorities, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the rising hazards to human health and the ecosystem, and why its so hard to keep our waters clean.
A compilation of conferences/debates between renowned designers, environmental activists, and students on the concept of design. Held in Aspen, Colorado, USA.
It is happening all across America-rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from an energy company wanting to lease their property. Reason? The company hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas." Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground-a hydraulic drilling process called "fracking"-and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.
In his first film, Julien Chauzit gathers four young adults in their twenties who are on holiday in Martigues, and he shows their political awakening, in the face of the environmental disaster to come.
