GEFF2021 Program 4: Presented by Patagonia

Streaming Online | September 9-12, 2021 | #GEFF2021 | #GlobalExtractionAction

GEFF2021 PROGRAM 4 * PRESENTED BY PATAGONIA
Curated by Esther Figueroa

The Presented by Paragonia Program offers 8 feature documentaries and urgent shorts produced by Patagonia Films, ‘a collective of storytellers who make films on behalf of our home planet.’ These selected films are about people fighting for environmental and food justice, to protect last wild places and species, and to find community based solutions.

DamNation: The Problem with Hydropower, one of the program’s films, chronicles the nationally promoted narrative in the United States of man’s domination of nature, then decades later the realization that humans are completely dependent on nature, that large-scale dams are one of our very worst inventions and are now often removed. Public Trust: The Fight for America’s Public Lands and Lawqa: Que el Parque Vuelva a Ser Parque, two other selected films in this program, show how public lands and national parks in the United States and Chile have been handed over to extractive industries, removing the people, plants and animals who used to be there, and polluting and degrading the environment.

Check out the GEFF 2021 PROGRAM 1 * GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES here
Check out the GEFF 2021 PROGRAM 2 * FOCUS ON THE AMERICAS here
Check out the GEFF 2021 PROGRAM 3 * ANIMAL-HUMAN STUDIES here
Check out the GEFF2021 SPECIAL EVENTS here

Hasta La Raíz (Down to the Root, Javier Fernandez and Greg Mionske, 2021, 11 min
Follow Zamora’s journey as a Mexican immigrant in California and learn more about the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), a nonprofit that provides economic opportunities and training for limited-resource and aspiring organic farmers on a 100-acre farm.

Los hispanos son mayoría entre los trabajadores agrícolas en los Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, solo el 4% de los dueños de granjas son hispanos. Javier Zamora migró a los Estados Unidos desde México cuando era joven, trabajó en restaurantes y compró una casa para su familia. Tras perder la casa y su trabajo durante la crisis inmobiliaria, decidió completar su educación secundaria y volver a sus raíces en la agricultura. Pero, a los 43 años, la posibilidad de ser dueño de su propia granja parecía inalcanzable. Con el apoyo de su familia, su comunidad y una organización que trabaja por los agricultores llamada ALBA, Zamora se propuso desafiar a las probabilidades.

We the Power: The Future of Energy is Community Owned (David Garrett Byars, 2021, 38 mins)
A film about the citizen-led community-energy movement in Europe and the visionaries lighting the way. Imagine upending the traditional energy system and giving the power of clean electricity production back to your neighbors. We the Power follows friends, families and visionaries as they break down legislative barriers and take power back from big energy companies to put it in the hands of locals and strengthen their towns. The film chronicles local cooperatives from deep in Germany’s Black Forest to the streets of ancient Girona in Spain and the urban rooftops of London, England, as they pave the way for a renewable energy revolution and build healthier, financially stable communities.

Vjosa Forever: Protect Europe’s Wild Rivers (Bennett Piscitelli, 2021, 6 min)
People are rising up to protect Europe’s largest wild river: the Vjosa. This waterway runs untamed from source to sea, embracing a mosaic of habitats and cultures that have been tied to it for thousands of years. Vjosa Forever chronicles the ongoing struggle to secure the future of this unique river system, from political uncertainty and opportunistic greed to the hope of creating a Vjosa National Park (the first of its kind in Europe). With an Albanian election in April of 2021, river-lovers, local citizens and global conservationists fear that this “Queen of Europe” faces its greatest danger yet. At this historic moment, people everywhere have an obligation to speak for the Vjosa; to keep it running wild, forever.

Public Trust: The Fight for America’s Public Lands (David Byars, 2020, 98min)
America’s system of public lands and the fight to protect them. Despite support from voters across the political spectrum, our public lands face unprecedented threats from extractive industries and the politicians in their pockets. Part love letter, part political exposé, Public Trust investigates how we arrived at this precarious moment through three heated conflicts—a national monument in the Utah desert, a mine in the Boundary Waters and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—and makes a case for their continued protection.

Artifishal: The Fight to save Wild Salmon (Josh Murphy, 2019, 79 min)
Artifishal is a film about people, rivers, and the fight for the future of wild fish and the environment that supports them. It explores wild salmon’s slide toward extinction, threats posed by fish hatcheries and fish farms, and our continued loss of faith in nature.

District 15: Stop Neighborhood Oil Drilling (Anjali Nayar, 2020, 23 mins)
Communities for a Better Environment does critical work on environmental justice and empowers Californian communities to stand up to polluting industries and build a green energy future. This short film highlights the hope and tenacity of the young activists of Wilmington, California as they push the Los Angeles City Council to prohibit new and existing oil and gas drilling operations within 2,500 feet of homes, schools and hospitals.

DamNation: The Problem with Hydropower (Ben Knight and Travis Rummel, 2020, 88 min)
This film explores the evolution of our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of wild rivers.

Lawqa: Que el Parque Vuelva a Ser Parque (Raimundo Gomez, 2020, 33 min)
Gabo Benoit, an outstanding sportsman, explores these lonely routes of the Chilean highlands on his bicycle, encountering the political maneuvers that have turned the region into a dump for mining waste at the expense of its natural wonders.

La Reserva Mundial de la Biosfera “Lauca”, esta siendo contaminada por relaves mineros abandonados y destruida por la explotación de la industria minera del bórax. Un destacado deportista, Gabo Benoit, explora en su bicicleta estas rutas solitarias del altiplano chileno, en busca de un espacio único y mágico donde practicar la pesca deportiva. En este viaje conoce a enigmáticos personajes que dan a conocer la vida de los últimos habitantes de la región, junto a las maniobras políticas que han convertido al Altiplano chileno, en un vertedero de desechos mineros a costa de sus maravillas naturales.