International Poetry Film Festival
Poetry Films: 53 • Animation: 10 • Documentaries: 22 • Experimental Films: 6 • Short Films: 14
Poetry Films
A Vernacular of the Numinous
Director(s): M Freeman | Country of Origin: United States
Juxtaposing spacious moving images of the everyday with a voiced reflection on the busy life and everyday mystical moments, A Vernacular of the Numinous is a poetic meditation on the extraordinary ordinary. A contemplative film inspired by an invitation to participate in Unpoetry at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum in response to Hugh Hayden: American Vernacular, Freeman’s A Vernacular of the Numinous is the latest addition to Cinema Divina–their offering of short films made through and for contemplative practice.
Anemone
Director(s): Eloise Fornieles | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
This experimental music video uses footage collected by the group to construct a layered visual collage representing the original poem by Erin Robinsong. Through playful juxtapositions, it transforms everyday yet life-altering moments into a kaleidoscope of intertwining ecosystems, cycles of life, and a persistent undercurrent of desire.
Anthropocene Trilogy
Director(s): Elin Johnston | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Anthropocene Trilogy asks how to render biosphere from within conjoint catastrophe, another species in pandemic’s wake. Transposing verbal-visual flux into sonic modalities, three scored micro-form “video-poéme†pieces “phrase and rephrase†lament for nature and the environment, keening from within the “trap†of our earthly sea of crises. 1. Mare Crisium: Equivocation voiced in respect of the natural world is set against the ominous consequences of our actions of displacement, disruption, and depredation occasioned within it. 2. Forest Aflame: A minimalist hybrid “visual / sound poem” montage concerning the implications of the problematic & dysfunctional relationship between humanity and nature. 3.
‘Becoming Enough…Everyone’s Everest’ Poem – narrated by Dame Joanna Lumley
Director(s): Tom McShane | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Becoming Enough A poetic meditation on impostor syndrome and the healing power of the outdoors, juxtaposing the immense scale of the Himalayas with the quiet, grounding comfort of nature. Narrated by Dame Joanna Lumley, the film brings to life ‘Becoming Enough’ by Major (Retd) Fiona Crouch. This was the winning entry in a poetry competition for veterans and the wider Armed Forces Community, celebrating the power of creative writing for mental health. Taken from the feature-length documentary ‘When Life Gives You Lemons…
Between Us and the World
Director(s): Jie Chen | Country of Origin: China
This cinematic video essay, Between Us and the World, is a lyrical meditation on exploration, belief, and the spaces between solitude and connection. Through a series of interconnected vignettes—from a one-armed sailor contemplating ancient navigators, to wolves in legend drinking seawater, to a lonely tree in New Zealand that becomes a crowded attraction—the film weaves a tapestry of human and natural journeys. Moving across locations like China’s Erhai Lake, Huizhou’s weekend crowds, Xinjiang’s once-fishless waters, and Portugal’s wind-swept Cabo da Roca, the film reflects on how we navigate the unknown: sometimes alone, sometimes in waves, driven by a quiet faith…
cataloguing care
Director(s): Tamar Ashdot | Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis not provided in the festival database.
Chi Yn Kernow (A House in Cornwall)
Director(s): Tommy Creagh | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Actor Edward Rowe performs Tim Saunders “Chi Yn Kernow (A House in Cornwall),” inspired by a line from the 16th-century Cornish play Bewnans Meriasek.
Composing The Song of Life – Aogu Wetland and Forest Park
Director(s): Chùn Têng Chiu | Country of Origin: Taiwan
Still, here we wait, with a deep, profound hope. Humanity and nature together compose the symphony of life. Ecology is the ever-flowing melody of life in Aogu. Inspired by the poetry of Du Ye, this film envisions a ‘New Paradise of Wetlands’. Set in the Aogu Wetland and Forest Park, it delicately captures the shifting rhythms of day and night, and the vibrant life that flourishes within. Through its imagery, the film preserves the beauty of transformation — where all living beings coexist between the sea and the sky.
Ebb Tide
Director(s): Colum Higgins | Country of Origin: Ireland
A spoken word and music tribute to my late Father.
Exodus Mars
Director(s): Regina Alatriste | Country of Origin: Mexico
A silent clown short film that reimagines the Greek myth of the Theogony, bringing Georges Méliès’ spirit into contemporary concerns. Gaia, the Earth, is dying of lung cancer and must find another planet to host her inhabitants. Yet none of the planets are willing to help. The only one capable of sustaining life is Mars — lover of her daughter Venus — toward whom Gaia harbors deeply conflicted feelings.
Faroe Islands 8K – The Wisdom of Nature
Director(s): Andreas Koeng | Country of Origin: Switzerland
Everything is nature. The wisdom of nature lives within all of us. This film about the Faroe Islands explores breathtaking landscapes, Norse mythology, and a deep connection to nature. It is accompanied by a stunning soundtrack composed by Martin Villiger, performed by a full real orchestra. Narration by Michael Morris. (See my Website or my Youtube Channel for the Making of)
Foresters’ Blood
Director(s): Philip Ryan | Country of Origin: Ireland
Poetry Film about a poem by Paudrig Lee re the loss of native Irish woodlands.
from Anna Liffey
Director(s): Matthew Thompson | Country of Origin: Ireland
Actress Olwen Fouéré rows a boat while performing an excerpt from “Anna Liffey,” Eavan Boland’s self-mythologizing poem tying her story to that of Dublin’s River Liffey.
FROM SAFFRON MOORS
Director(s): DIANA TAYLOR | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
A cornishman revisits an ancient stone circle to find his ancesters the Nine Maidens who have stood sleeping for some thousand years or more in a place of memory that is equal to heaven.
Gabor Marian: Nocturne
Director(s): Gábor Attila Kovács | Country of Origin: Hungary
A fragmented poem of reflections from a past love, where memories surface in slow and sudden shifts over a self-punishing dinner. A poetry film based on the poem Nocturne by Gábor Márián. A cinematic experiment by Gábor Attila Kovács to evoke the poem’s premise through film language.
Hair Trails
Director(s): Sirel Heinloo, Einar Lints | Country of Origin: Estonia
A great long braid becomes the guiding thread of this poetic short film. It begins on the edge of the world in Norway, where the mountains and the ocean awaken a voice hidden in the strands of hair. That voice leads the storyteller back to another edge of the world at home – the ancestral lands of South Estonia, a branch of roots only recently revealed. When hair begins to speak, what will you dare to ask?
hot/cold
Director(s): Urszula Morga | Country of Origin: Poland
hot/cold is a poetic series of video-observations exploring thermal experience in a time shaped by climate change and shifting human relationships. Each piece begins with small, everyday moments: the memory of a touch, the quiet of an apartment, the landscape freezing behind a window. These micro-experiences resonate with larger systems — climate, catastrophe, loneliness, and the desire for closeness. Warmth and coldness appear here as states of coexistence — fragile, unstable, and dependent on exchanges between bodies, emotions, and environments.
Hundan – An Echo of a Dirge
Director(s): Karamat Ali | Country of Origin: Pakistan
Hundan – An Echo of a Dirge is the first-ever feature film made in Burushaski, a language classified as “definitely endangered†by UNESCO. Set against the breathtaking yet vulnerable landscapes of Hunza in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, the film draws from an ancient oral tale, once told to instill harmony between humans and wildlife. Through a poetic narrative centered on a mother markhor and her newborn, the story unfolds as a meditation on coexistence, survival, and the consequences of human intrusion into natural ecosystems.
Hymenoptera (honey bee, bumblebee, vespa orientalis)
Director(s): Kim Trainor | Country of Origin: Canada
The bees are making the world.
i ni
Director(s): Jessie Currie | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
i ni is a 5-minute Welsh-language film poem that serves as a visceral act of sovereignty to the Welsh landscape, its language, and its people. Shot on location at Barafundle Bay, Pembrokeshire, the film is a poetic retelling of a true-life rite of passage: a daughter and her father returning a mother’s ashes to the sea. This project explores the hinterland between documentary drama and art filmmaking, navigating the liminal space where visual and verbal elements actively shape each other.
I was here
Director(s): José Crúzio, Martin Gerigk | Country of Origin: Portugal
The short film I WAS HERE is part of the Portuguese I WAS HERE project, a series of short videograms conceived as records of visits to “non-places†and “placesâ€â€”transitional or passing points, whether circumstantial or intentional. Through a process of revision and additional composition, these locations are given new value and meaning, incorporating sound and interpretations from different sources while simultaneously revealing their main references. The project ultimately takes the form of a collaborative work, particularly through the co-production of sound. I WAS HERE features the widely known poem “Man and Machine†by D.H. Lawrence.
Karten der Wildnis
Director(s): Aline Helmcke, Sandra Reyes, Juliane Franke, Franka Sachse, Catalina Giraldo, Ana Vallejo | Country of Origin: Germany
A cartographer has lost his orientation: did his tools become useless or could it be that the terrain itself is changing? “Karten der Wildnis†is the story of the cartographer interpreted by seven animation artists who venture into the experiment of making a collaborative film. Analogue animation techniques and a poem by Daniela Danz are their starting points to approach the unknown, following the processes that occur when they enter into this adventure.
Kubla Khan
Director(s): Savannah Acquah | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Poet Jo Clement reads a poem by the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan.” The film is set in an enchanting green woodland, featuring a dream-like waterfall, and evokes the beauty, mysticism and prophetic warning of this famous English poem.
Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America
Director(s): Eric Felipe-Barkin | Country of Origin: United States
Poet Caridad Moro-Gronlier performs Matthew Olzmann’s poem “Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America” against the backdrop of Florida’s Everglades National Park.
L’horizon Vacant
Director(s): Cindy Stockton Moore, Nadia Bongo | Country of Origin: United States
Through motifs and fiction, the video weaves together vacant places from cities on three different continents (Africa, Europe, America). Among the vegetation, these spaces harbor lingering feelings (nostalgia, longing) and imagination. Cindy and Nadia invite the viewer to experience these emotions and reimagine their relation with external and internal “vacanciesâ€.
OBITUARY FOR A SEASON (BERLIN VERSION)
Director(s): Gabriele Nugara | Country of Origin: Germany
through the dialogue between spoken word and song, between the image created by artificial intelligence and the romantic desolation of the real debris that surrounds us on the street, between glaciation and melting, snow becomes the representation of what no longer holds, of something that does not remain, does not settle, that vanishes immediately, like the words we did not pay attention to.
Oceanus Nullius – Poema
Director(s): Veronica Vossen | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
‘Oceanus Nullius – Poema is a poetic extension of the original video, part of the ‘Tellus Nullius’ series of work in the artist’s ‘Aeonic’ project. Filmed and photographed in the wild, remote highland and coastal region of northwest Scotland, all fundaments of the hydrologic cycle are visibly highly active within this elemental landscape where the science of the globe’s geological a evolution was historically established with aeonic fossil remains of early emergent lifeforms.
Remnants
Director(s): Gene Murphy | Country of Origin: Ireland
Part ecopoem, part reminiscence, Remnants is a poetry film about all we leave behind. You said the sea will eat the land, before it comes for us. So we set fire to inhibition, held impulse above trust.
Sand shape
Director(s): Danae Imme Zegers | Country of Origin: Belgium
This stop-motion animation is about the poem ‘Sand shape’ by Paul Demets: two lovers emerge from sand, their bodies intertwined—veins stretched, hearts chambers aligned. They speak desire into existence. But sand seeps between them, grain by grain, transforming what they built into something untouchable.
Sea Color Chart
Director(s): Inès LEROY GALAN | Country of Origin: France
The Sea Color Chart is a poetic journey through the colors, sensations, and atmospheres of the seaside. They are inherently repetitive, but small nuances punctuate them and sometimes the spectrum of this color chart widens. Photographs alternate with colored backgrounds, forming a moving and hypnotic chromatic range punctuated by poems written and read along the water’s edge—all along the coast of Brittany. This emotional journey reconnects us with original sensations, with a lost temporality that slips away from us, invoking the sensitive impression of the infinite world of childhood memories, where sadness and joy intertwine.
SVTEUNG MVLI: The Land of the Living
Director(s): Qianhui Huang | Country of Origin: China
The film is for Derung people, one of the smallest ethnic minorities in China, and the primary spoken language in this film is Derung language. We vibrantly expressed their energetic and poetic temperament, strong ethnic identity, as well as profound and mysterious cultural heritage. This was my initial attempt to depict people with fundamentally different tradition, culture, art and the way of life from us. With rich sensitivity and thoughtfulness, we approached and walked in Derung people, who live for generations along the Derung River Valley in the northwestern region of Yunnan Province, bordering Tibet Autonomous Region to the north…
The Gathering Light
Director(s): Xavier Masson-Leach | Country of Origin: Australia
‘The Gathering Light’ is a meditative portrait of a man who has been collecting memories over a lifetime, but is still chasing something in the deeper water. Shot in the towering ancient landscape of the Hawkesbury river, north of Sydney, the film asks what we can take with us on the final journey to the river’s mouth. Based on ‘Birds and Fish’, the non fiction account of the life of acclaimed Australian poet Robert Adamson, The Gathering Light is a poetic interpretation of a life lived in pursuit of the big fish.
The Hebridean Crab Apple
Director(s): Savannah Acquah | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Inspired by the mystery of a crab apple tree discovered on an uninhabited outer-Hebridean island, the lonely species potentially being there since the last ice age, poet Marjorie Lotfi reads her poem “The Hebridean Crab Apple.” Sat beneath the exquisite beauty and powerful roots of a tree closer to home, she questions whether home is a place, or a decision to stay.
The Invisible Village of the Palmetum
Director(s): SOLAVY ZULEMARO | Country of Origin: France, French Guiana
The Invisible Village of the Palmetum is a poetic and immersive documentary exploring the invisible memory of French Guiana through the presence of women, children and families evolving within the Palmetum. Blending sensitive testimonies, Afro-Amazonian traditions, living nature and dreamlike visual capsules, the film questions transmission, identity and the spiritual connection between human beings and the forest. Conceived as a sensory journey, the documentary merges reality, contemplation and intimate resonance in a space where imagination meets the real world.
The Little Things Too
Director(s): Donnell Cox | Country of Origin: United States
The Little Things Too is a contemplative nature film that invites viewers to slow down and notice the quiet beauty often overlooked around us. Through intimate wildlife, flowing water, forests, and open landscapes, the film reflects on how life’s smallest moments can bring peace, wonder, and a deeper sense of connection.
The Peace of Wild Things
Director(s): Matthew Thompson | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Actress Friedli Walton roams city streets while performing Wendell Berry’s beloved poem “The Peace of Wild Things.”
The Poets’ Pier
Director(s): Mara Miksch | Country of Origin: Canada
The Poets’ Pier reveals the wonders of life on and under the Olga Public Dock on Orcas Island. Photogenic herons, perch and people form an interspecies community that is both real and aspirational. The Poets’ Pier shows what happens when loud motors and extractive industry recede and more sustainable relationships emerge. The Poets’ Pier employs poetry, art, music, and storytelling to contemplate the meaning of coexistence in the Anthropocene. All footage and audio is original to the film. No AI, drone or stock materials were used.
The Pulse of Nature
Director(s): Lia Kluane Bailey Grainger, Tamar Ilana, Sangkyung Lee | Country of Origin: Canada, South Korea
The Pulse of Nature is a short dance and music film inspired by the remarkable migration of the ancient murrelet, a small shorebird that makes a rare east-west migration between Haida Gwaii, Canada, and Ueumdo Island, near Seoul, South Korea. Created by Canadian flamenco artists Lia Grainger and Tamar Ilana in collaboration with Korean percussion trio Groove& during a residency in Seoul in January 2026, the film blends flamenco dance, voice, and traditional Korean percussion.
the Remnant
Director(s): ARDA GÜL | Country of Origin: Türkiye
the Remnant, a poetry film based on a poem written in the wake of the devastating earthquake that struck Türkiye in 2023, claiming the lives of approximately 60,000 people, pays tribute to resilience and the struggle for survival. Blending the ancient will of King Antiochus I of Commagene (69–34 BC), found on Mount Nemrut, which lies within the 2023 earthquake zone and has withstood hundreds of natural disasters to this day, with Anatolia’s deep-rooted healing traditions, the film offers a meditation on continuity amidst loss.
The Shapeshifter’s Lament
Director(s): Gaele Sobott | Country of Origin: Australia
The Shapeshifter’s Lament is a poetic fantasy reflecting on introduced species. Situating survival at the shifting boundaries between different life forms, it weaves a narrative of kinship, metamorphosis, and the fragile persistence of memory. The question remains: how might the original inhabitants respond to uninvited and introduced arrivals who disrupt the harmony of the land and its living forms?
The Signalman
Director(s): Ashley Drouet Pegg | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
“A man must be obedient to the signs,” says railway signalman and poet Ezra Miles. This film is poetic journey into his thoughts from a box about mental health and the divine. Shot on 16mm. Ezra Miles was the poet in residence for the Wellcome Trust in the UK. Music/Composer Kit Downes http://www.kitdownesmusic.com/ DOP Andrew Alderslade http://www.andrewalderslade.com/ Sound Designer Anya Przygoda https://aniaprzygoda.com/
The Silence of Plants
Director(s): Rob Akin | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Poet Jason Allen-Paisant reads “The Silence of Plants,” a poem by the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska. The film opens with a cacophony of nature playing out, placing the viewer in the treetops, then immersed in the flowers by our feet, encouraging us to wonder at the relationship we have with the earth, animals, and plants.
The Source
Director(s): Bean Hazel Sawyer | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
The Source explores identity and queering menopause. Water asks the troubled poet, Who are you? Using its consistent fluidity to guide them back upstream, to remind them of their own true Source. It features award-winning poet, Jo Bell as the voice of water.
The Watershed
Director(s): Silvy Zhou | Country of Origin: United States
“The Watershed†is an experimental 16mm film that tells the story of a girl who, after witnessing her older sister’s mysterious drowning, discovers that the river and its water connects them even in her sister’s death.
Upon the porous edge
Director(s): Carine Iriarte | Country of Origin: France
Synopsis: A body leans towards stone. Presence unfolds through their shared porosity. The encounter unsettles the boundary between flesh and mineral, where one seems to enter the other without ever fully becoming it. Through a slow process of mineral incubation, the receptive body attunes itself to the silent vibrations of the rock, allowing another form of presence to surface between stone and flesh. Description: “Upon the porous edge” is a short ecoperformative video-poem: a body in black, barefoot, lies alongside a limestone wall and moves with it until the boundary between flesh and rock becomes uncertain.
wait (what)
Director(s): wendy oberlander | Country of Origin: Canada
Overheard at the grocer’s.
War Profit Litany
Director(s): Aliah Rosenthal | Country of Origin: Switzerland
Video performance by Aliah Rosenthal, Allen Ginsberg’s godson for the 100th Centennial of Allen Ginsberg:1926-2026 recorded for The Fall of America: A 50th Anniversary Musical Tribute.
We Are Made of the Same
Director(s): Zoe Paterson Macinnes | Country of Origin: Not Specified
An original film-poem with themes of identity and place from the Scottish islands. Featuring Gaelic archive recordings of past island residents, discussing the Clearing of the old villages in Great Bernera, the film looks at the history and pedagogy of the creator, who is indigenous to the small island in the Isle of Lewis. With themes of fitting in, masking pain and embracing a sense of place, the film poem expresses how the creator fits in with her history of her island after returning home and dealing with chronic pain, she finds herself looking at her roots from where she…
What Breaks First
Director(s): Matt Mullins | Country of Origin: United States
First them. Then us. Then a world without either.
What Wine Owes to the Night
Director(s): Mathieu Blanchart | Country of Origin: Belgium
Night has fallen, but the vineyard does not sleep. In the silent darkness, the vines whisper, the leaves quiver, and the earth still breathes. What the Wine Owes the Night is a visual and sensory poem, an intimate dive into the nocturnal life of a vineyard. With little or no dialogue, the film captures breaths, fleeting lights, and unseen presences that watch over the land as humans withdraw. It is an ode to slowness, to matter, to vegetal mystery. Little by little, the night reveals what the day conceals: the underground life, the hidden rhythms of nature.
Where shall I go?
Director(s): Ishvar Krishnan | Country of Origin: India
Oh you! Where are you? I chased. You played along. Wherever I went, you were already there. Are you me? Am I you? To find answers, to find you . . . Where shall I go?
Who Owns Fire?
Director(s): Peter Whittenberger | Country of Origin: Not Specified
Who Owns Fire? is an animated poetry film that explores the evolving equilibrium of finite resources between artificial intelligence and the fundamental needs of organic life. With the rapid advance of corporate machine learning, the film is a question of our species’ forced embrace of these new technologies and their impact on the Earth’s environmental sustainability. It is a study of the contrast between extrinsic control and the illusion of choice. The film asks us to think about how the comprehensive integration of these new technologies will impact our humanity, wildlife, and the environment.
why blackbirds sing
Director(s): Angie Contini, Penelope Daw, Joan Gillison | Country of Origin: Australia, United Kingdom
A gothic folktale where greed meets its reckoning.
Animation
A Fisherman’s Tail
Director(s): Frederik Løchte, Emma Herlevsen | Country of Origin: Denmark
A bored fisherman sees his life take a gruesome turn when he falls in the sea, but is unable to swim back to the surface. He now has to find his way back to shore in other ways. Swimming through tunnels and foreign worlds, he uncovers the secrets of the sea he thought he knew so well. But these strange new worlds do not come without their dangers. Will he find his way back?
All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
Director(s): Adam George | Country of Origin: United States
This is an animation inspired by a poem by Richard Brautigan. I call this art form “animated poetry”- where I create an animation based on my interpretation of a poem. All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace explores humanity’s connection to technology, its distance from nature, and how ties can be strengthened between technology, nature, and humankind. It was animated frame by frame using the program Rough Animator. Music by Dallin Peacock.
Eastern
Director(s): Rastko Šejić | Country of Origin: Serbia
An animated on-the-road film unfolds as visual poetry, following a couple traveling through rural and industrial landscapes marked by history, ideology, and environmental erosion. Their journey becomes a shared act of looking — a quiet, emotional response to a world shaped by inherited conflicts, fading traditions, and mythological echoes. Rather than constructing a linear narrative, the film weaves together poetic images where reality, memory, and mythology coexist. Fractured roads, scarred terrains, and symbolic figures reflect a space historically conditioned by power, resistance, and survival.
HYPATIA OF ALEXANDRIA -the solitary bee-
Director(s): ERWAN LE GAL | Country of Origin: France
A philosopher like Aristotle, Hypatia of Alexandria tried to understand Nature ,in it’s entirely! Too much of a free spirit, she was murdered by christian mob in 415 AD. In the 20 th century she became a Feminist icon and a symbol for women’s rights.
Kyushu Triad
Director(s): Marcie D Begleiter | Country of Origin: United States
On the volcanic island of Kyushu in Japan, a group of renegade flora and fungi meet, mate and reproduce in a climate crisis dance of abandon.
Riehpovuotna – Repparfjorden
Director(s): Claire Baumgarth | Country of Origin: France, Norway
Since the 18th century, Sámi indigenous population have to fight to protect their culture and their lands. Riehpovuotna, known as Repparfjord in Norwegian is a protected fjord in Sapmi lands. Despite lacking legal authorization and breaking many laws, Blue Moon Metals mining company is destroying the local ecosystem and the Sámi fishing and herding activities to extract copper from the mountain. As Norway is one of the two only country in the world that allows deep-sea tailing disposal (disposal of mining waste in the seabed) 30 million tons of waste will be released in the fjord due to the mining…
Siavash in the Mirror and the Fire
Director(s): Lia Fathi | Country of Origin: Netherlands
Siavash faces the trial of fire, confronting his fate and inner turmoil. Through reflection and courage, he navigates a journey of purification and transformation
Story of Beads: Anaxi’s Choice
Director(s): Keywa Henri | Country of Origin: French Guiana
As the Community prepares to pronounce its judgment, Anaxi Spider in the Kalina language stands at a crossroads: to save their detractors, or to save themself? Through the indigenous and ancestral art of beading, Keywa Henri delivers a message of hope and freedom. The Kalin’a language is the Kalin’a Tɨlewuyu Nation’s language, one of the seven Indigenous Peoples in “French Guiana”, a France’s department.
tierra
Director(s): Cristal Buemi | Country of Origin: Canada
tierra is a sand animation exploring cyclical mark making and patterns reflected in landscapes, the human body and their interconnectedness. Weaving abstraction, repetition and hand-made processes both in sound and in visuals to blur the lines between the body and its natural surroundings.
Waiting for the Barbarians
Director(s): Georges Sifianos | Country of Origin: Greece
In a city evoking, without specificity, a city of the Roman Empire the poem depicts a state of waiting: the arrival of the Barbarians has been announced, the emperor himself seems ready to submit to their authority, and every hypothesis about the future is possible. The city holds its breath in anticipation But who, exactly, are these Barbarians? And what if they do not come?
Documentaries
A TROUT AND THE LASTWALTZ
Director(s): Asato Sakamoto | Country of Origin: Japan
The Masu Salmon’s vital cycle river to sea and back is violently interrupted by the pressures of modernization. Through the lens of the masu salmon’s struggle, this documentary questions the natural and cultural losses exacted by our relentless economic development.
Aftermath
Director(s): Ken Honjo | Country of Origin: Japan
A retired Japanese forester who dedicated his soul to the mountains faces a bittersweet heartbreak as modern economics drive the next generation away, leaving his lifelong legacy to wither in neglect.
An Irish Atlantic Rainforest
Director(s): Gary Lennon | Country of Origin: Ireland
In 2009, Dublin sculptor Eoghan Daltun abandoned city life for a derelict 73-acre farm on the Beara Peninsula. The land is ecologically damaged: overgrazed and choking with invasive species. His radical solution? To step back and let nature heal itself. This immersive environmental documentary chronicles ecological resurrection as native woodlands surge from barren ground, rare species return, and biodiversity explodes. The film poses urgent questions about humanity’s place in nature in an age of climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
Bears in Hot Tubs
Director(s): Claire Musser, Maddie Bear | Country of Origin: United States
Bears in Hot Tubs is a tender, emotionally resonant short film co-created with Maddie Bear and her wild kin, who move through the suburban landscapes of Los Angeles with curiosity, intelligence, and quiet grace. From soaking in backyard tubs to wandering garden paths, these black bears are not intruders; they are neighbors, navigating a world remade by human presence. Rather than depicting wildlife as problems to be solved, the 16-minute film centers the lived experiences of the bears themselves. Maddie shares her world on her own terms, inviting us to witness rather than surveil, to recognize rather than manage.
Code 359: Music Postcards
Director(s): Ivan Dimitrov Popov, Martin Dimitrov Denev | Country of Origin: Bulgaria
Series of eight music documentaries about eight of the most iconic locations in Bulgaria, each one featuring a prominent Bulgarian guest musician. Music composed by Martin Denev. With a narrative emphasizing on legends, myths, poetry and folklore.
Days of the Owl
Director(s): Ece Soydam | Country of Origin: Turkey
Turkey is home to some of the richest wildlife in Europe. Among this diversity lives a relatively unknown bird of prey: the long-eared owl. These owls not only live in the wild; they also thrive in villages and even in cities, right alongside people. In some beliefs they are considered bad luck. But for some people who share the same environment with them, things are quite different. In the heart of Anatolia, there are stories that show humans and wildlife can coexist without conflict.
Denmark – Blue Hours
Director(s): Rachel Wei | Country of Origin: Denmark, United States
Set against the tranquil landscapes of Denmark, this personal documentary follows a healing journey through nature, solitude, and self-reflection. From vast blue coastlines and quiet ocean roads to encounters with wildlife, boats, and shifting skies, the film captures a road trip that becomes an emotional passage inward. Through immersive visuals of sea, land, and movement, it explores how place can become a mirror for healing, memory, and renewal.
Flourish
Director(s): Christopher Baker | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Flourish is a documentary exploring the living network of a regenerative farm in Cambridgeshire, UK. At its centre is Calixta, a young farmer whose early exposure to agriculture abroad shaped a belief that farming could work differently — placing soil health, biodiversity, and community at its core. After years honing her craft on farms across the US, she returned to Britain to put those ideas into practice. Flourish observes farming as a web of relationships — between soil, farmer, produce, animals, team, and customer.
Jubilee Shoals
Director(s): Constantinos Anastasios Christou | Country of Origin: Cyprus
Off the coast of Pissouri Bay, the hidden reef of Jubilee Shoals reveals a surprising underwater world of towering rock formations, caves, and rich marine life. Ranging from sunlit shallows to dark cave systems, the shoals host a unique ecosystem shaped by cooler waters and rare coralligenous habitats. Through divers and researchers, the documentary explores the site’s remarkable biodiversity—from corals and sponges to turtles and rays—while uncovering its still largely unexplored nature. It ultimately highlights Jubilee Shoals as a rare Mediterranean oasis and a reminder of the importance of protecting fragile underwater environments.
Khu.éex’:The Magic of Noise
Director(s): Michael-Peter Kane Kleven | Country of Origin: United States
A legendary funk innovator and a circle of Indigenous artists and allies fuse ancestral songs with radical new sounds, as their band confronts grief, loss, and erasure—and just keeps playing, transforming loss into a living document that shouts, “we are still here!” The documentary follows the journey of the band, Khu.éex’, drawing inspiration from the Tlingit tribe of Southeast Alaska. From inception, through perseverance to celebration, to erasure, they prove their voice will not be silenced.
Return: Saving Turtles
Director(s): Ignacio Loera | Country of Origin: Mexico
RETURN follows the efforts of a family of former sea-turtle–egg poachers, now dedicated protectors, leading VIVEMAR—a community-based organization in Oaxaca, Mexico. Through their work, they safeguard one of the world’s most endangered sea turtle species during its nesting season along the Mexican coast.
RiverRiver
Director(s): Tim A Folkmann | Country of Origin: Canada
Drifting from the Saskatchewan glaciers to the river city of Edmonton, this experimental poetic film follows water as memory and witness. Through fragmented images and ambient sound, it traces melt, movement, and transformation—connecting ancient ice to contemporary urban life. The river becomes a living archive, carrying stories of change, downstream.
Saliqmiut: people along the coast, at the edge
Director(s): Alan Rudolph Marcus | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
The film explores the impact of climate change on two communities in sharply different urban and natural settings. In January 2025, Los Angeles experienced the worst fires in its history, destroying more than 18,000 homes and structures. While in the small Canadian Inuit hamlet Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Ocean the community is contending with coastal erosion, flooding and the town’s relocation. Saliqmiut adopts a novel fire and ice bifocal perspective to consider the local implications and adaption to the escalating effects of climate change.
seaward
Director(s): Saksham Mehrotra | Country of Origin: Singapore
Singapore’s coastlines are always in flux – a delicate dance between the receding tides and the rising earthmovers. ‘seaward’ drifts through the peripheries of this very landscape, offering a quiet meditation on the life that endures at the edges of a changing island.
Takigyo
Director(s): Julian Weinert | Country of Origin: Germany
At the edge of a forest in Japan stands a Buddhist temple. A priest approaches a waterfall amidst the surrounding trees. He consecrates the area and welcomes a woman. Together they perform “takigyo” – the ritual waterfall meditation intended to purify body and soul.
The Blob From Below
Director(s): Riley McAvoy | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
The Blob unravels the mystery of a warm-water mass that emerged in the North Pacific between the years of 2014-2017 devastating Alaska’s coastal ecosystems. Told with a retro horror twist, the film blends suspense, humour, and natural history to explore how “The Blob†triggered mass seabird die-offs and disrupted the fragile balance of life at sea. Through the eyes of a seasoned boat captain and leading scientist, the story reveals both eerie encounters and the broader climate crisis that lurks beneath the waves.
The dance of the Kokorrdit
Director(s): guido bilbao, Elio Cunampio | Country of Origin: Panama
A Wounaan chief and a rebellious teenager engage in a trip across of the Darien jungle in search of a sacred bird that can restore the spiritual balance of their people.
The Last People of Petra
Director(s): Lara Dihmis | Country of Origin: Jordan
Set in and around Petra, Jordan, The Last People of Petra follows members of the Bdoul Bedouin community who were displaced from their ancestral caves and relocated to a nearby village. When the tribe was originally mass removed in 1985, around 30 families stayed. The film captures a renewed moment of their displacement, as the government tries to recapture control over the area, displaying a fraught relationship with the state and tourism industry. Please note that the film is still being coloured, its audio re-mixed and the music finalised.
The Peaceful Weapon
Director(s): Dima Bass | Country of Origin: Latvia
The Peaceful Weapon follows five musicians from different countries who use music to address some of today’s most pressing social and environmental challenges. From protecting whales and documenting melting glaciers to empowering women and supporting young musicians in Africa, each has found a unique way to create change through art. Their journeys converge in a small town in southern Italy, where they join 65 musicians from around the world—including participants from countries in conflict—to explore whether music can bridge divisions and inspire action. *Original Music by 150 Artist from 50 countries
There the wind
Director(s): Alfredo Lichter | Country of Origin: Argentina
There the wind is the story of a journey through some islands in the South Atlantic. Whenever I look at an island on a map, I think, “I want to go there.” This time, following some biologists who study seabirds, I relived what I once imagined, tracing the outline of a globe with my index finger. It all began in childhood with Captain Nemo and his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Variations in D Major on Vineyard and Sculptures
Director(s): Vassilis Loules | Country of Origin: Greece
A vineyard where the cultivation of the earth coexists with works of Sculpture. The cycle of the seasons, the toil of man, the harvest of the grapes, the wine, and the sculptures of Nature itself are perhaps nothing but variations on a single musical theme—one on creation, memory, and the timelessness of Art. (NOTE: The film is currently available in Greek with English subtitles/titles)
Wisdom of Gunung Sewu
Director(s): Ira Setiawati | Country of Origin: Indonesia
In the karst landscapes of Gunung Sewu (“the Thousand Mountains UNESCO Geoparkâ€), where limestone hills meet the southern sea of Java, a way of life unfolds in close relation to the land. Here, gestures, rituals, and songs sustain a shared rhythm of existence shaped by long-standing cosmological understandings. Through cycles of farming, ceremonies, and everyday life, the film moves alongside those who inhabit this world—across fields, villages, sacred caves, and the coastline, where time, sound, and perception take on another density. Rather than following a linear narrative, the film gradually unfolds through an interplay of voices, images, performances, and sound.
Experimental Films
Engraved Light Poem
Director(s): Yi-Chin Tsai | Country of Origin: Finland, Taiwan
Inspired by the shifting colours of Nordic winter light, Engraved Light Poem transforms a poem hand-engraved onto 16mm film into an experience of light, image, and sound. Engraved traces, changing hues, and the cadence of a spoken poem gradually unfold into a sensory landscape where poetry is felt as much as it is read or heard.
On a windy night
Director(s): Hiroshi Atobe | Country of Origin: Japan
About this work On a windy night Painting need many commodity for it.Ordinary Japanese I myself could not make it some cronometorical material and does not have the opportunity to show for so many peopel. The video shows and manifested that plants and I are also blowing in the wind.
Spheres
Director(s): Martin Gerigk | Country of Origin: Germany
Spheres is an homage to life, a poetic essay that drifts through a series of expanding spheres, each revealing a different layer of our shared reality, from the microscopic to the mythical. The film is an exploration of how the smallest vibrations of existence echo outward into the vast architecture of being and cosmos, a breathing meditation designed to remind us of the wonders of our incomprehensibly beautiful world. Spheres invites viewers to look closely, to listen deeply, and to remember that every sphere – no matter how small or vast – is part of one continuous unfolding.
Tending Sheep, Goats and Wind Turbines
Director(s): Alexandros Bouris | Country of Origin: Greece
Cavo D’oro or Kafireas in South Euboea, Greece, unknown, isolated, exposed to the wind and the waves, has its own place on the map. The main activities in the region are livestock farming and the wind industry. Sheep, goats and wind turbines may not have a direct relationship, but in the midst of the developments of modern times, such unorthodox relationships seem to thrive amd create the future archaeology. And yet, they share a common cause of care, for both animal and machine. With the residents of the wider area being professionally active tending sheep, goats and wind turbines.
The spirit of the forest
Director(s): Attila Végh | Country of Origin: Hungary
Poetic nature film on Hungarian woodland.
Wild Yeasts
Director(s): Joachim Soudan, Maud Girault, Jérôme Zahno | Country of Origin: Belgium
In a distant future, Brussels is the last livable place on earth, thanks to its regular rain. The city is flooded, and a thick gray sky forms an ever tighter cover over it. Transformed into a vat and overrun by wild brewer’s yeasts, Brussels starts to ferment. Facing this new threat, a commission of randomly selected residents was asked to define a strategy.
Short Films
A Handful of Dirt
Director(s): Stephen Rivera | Country of Origin: United States
Featuring Ojibwe painter John Potter, A Handful of Dirt is an exploration of our primordial connection to the natural world. Rooted in the Ojibwe story of the bond between humans and Ma’iingan—the wolf—the film invites us to remember our place among wild things. Within a handful of dirt, past, present, and future are held together. The final words linger, asking us to reconsider our entire way of being. A Handful of Dirt is the first in a series of short films and mini documentaries exploring our connection to the natural world, Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Wilds.
A Sense of Limit
Director(s): Ruby Seresin | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
A Sense of Limit is an artistic essay film shot solely on Super8 which invites viewers to imagine the world as seen, heard and felt by other beings. Through philosophical narration, montage of natural imagery and immersive sound design, the film challenges us to recognise the limits of our own perception and find space for humility, curiosity and empathy for all life on earth.
Ancestry
Director(s): Jubilian Ngaruwa, Tessa Barlin | Country of Origin: Nigeria
The documentary “Ancestry” takes viewers to the oral storytelling customs of the Osogbo, indigenous people. Working very closely with oral history keepers, the indigenous women of Osogbo, this moving film shoecases their environmental protection and cultural practices. Ancestry explores the relationship between indigenous customs, environmental preservation, and the sacred bond between humans and nature, as told through the words of committed priestesses and forest protectors. The film highlights the Osogbo people’s steadfast dedication to protecting the sacred Osun River, which is thought to represent the goddess Osun, and the Osun Osogbo Sacred Forest, both of which are recognized as UNESCO…
Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica’s Coastline
Director(s): Emiel Martens, Elsie Vermeer | Country of Origin: Jamaica, Netherlands
Beach Inna Bondage is a short documentary by Kingston-based Dutch filmmaking duo Emiel Martens and Elsie Vermeer in collaboration with the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) and Grammy-winning Jamaican reggae arist Keznamdi exploring the growing struggle for beach access in Jamaica. Since the 1950s, public access to the island’s beaches has steadily declined, leaving less than one percent of the coastline publicly accessible for Jamaicans. Over the decades, most of Jamaica’s beaches have been captured by private and tourist interests, and particularly since the 2000s large-scale hotel developments have limited beach access for Jamaicans.
Call to the Channel
Director(s): Judith Anketell | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Tidal currents, sound waves, marine life, sea floors and sea edges – ‘Call to the Channel’ poetically immerses imaginations, reflections and senses into the depths. Judith Anketell invited artists of diverse disciplines to re-envision human-centric perceptions of the English Channel – ‘La Manche’ – moving from the Channel as resource; to the Channel as an elemental entity connected to the global Ocean. Made in collaboration with filmmaker Clare Unsworth, this meditative film offers the artists’ spoken word contributions, inviting gentle shifts in how we perceive and listen to the natural world.
Dawn Chorus
Director(s): Lewis Rapkin | Country of Origin: United States
Dawn Chorus is a meditative and thought-provoking short documentary following interspecies musician and philosopher David Rothenberg as he ventures into the natural world with an unusual mission: to make music with birds. Blending art and science, the film explores the relationships between observer and participant, musician and animal, human and nature. Set in the liminal hours of early morning, the film captures Rothenberg’s immersive practice of joining the daily birdsong that erupts at sunrise. With clarinet in hand, he doesn’t seek to mimic or analyze the birds, but to communicate and to become part of nature’s symphony.
Eat My Poem
Director(s): Rebecca J King, REBECCA KING | Country of Origin: United States
This film follows the narrator, Rebecca King, as she and her crew work on her 40 acre sheep dairy farm. As Rebecca narrates a poem about the labor of love behind farming and cheesemaking, we see the daily chores with the livestock and milking, and the cheesemaking process from milk to consumption. The film culminates with a farm dinner prepared by Rebecca. This is a story of where food comes from, but also the connection between a farmer and the land, the food they produce and the community they feed.
Hello Whale
Director(s): Katherine Fleming, Darian Woehr | Country of Origin: Not Specified
Wander through the remote Alaskan wilderness with renowned artist Michele Oka Doner to witness how we are not separate from what is wild, but a part of something much bigger than ourselves. “Hello Whale†delves into southeast Alaska’s remote ocean ecosystems and threatened humpback whale community through the artistic lens of Michele Oka Doner. This ecopoetic documentary explores the relationships between vulnerable wildlife and conservation researchers fighting to protect them, using creative science-driven storytelling to inspire this vital waterscape’s safeguarding.
Injalak
Director(s): Jonathan Sequeira, Wade Jackson | Country of Origin: Australia
A remote town in Australia has a thriving community of indigenous artists.
MUSTANG – The forgotten Himalayan valley
Director(s): Ales Bravnicar | Country of Origin: Slovenia
The documentary is a visual expedition into the former Nepalese kingdom, set among the peaks of the Himalayas. Along the powerful flow of the Kali Gandaki River, cutting like a silver snake through the world’s deepest gorge, we follow the footsteps of ancient caravan routes once used to transport salt, and we listen to the mysterious whisper of Tibet’s enduring spirit. Mustang, positioned at the crossroads of the Himalayas’ relentless winds deep in the heart of Nepal, remained closed to the world for centuries, preserving its untouched essence and heart.
PETAGNA
Director(s): Franco Blandi | Country of Origin: Italy
Luca and Martina are sixteen years old and live in the same town on the outskirts of the Nebrodi mountains. Although surrounded by people and constantly connected to their smartphones, both experience a deep sense of loneliness. Luca spends his days shut in his room, between video games and social networks, while Martina seeks refuge in shared online videos and virtual friendships, overwhelmed by anxieties she struggles to control. During a school excursion in the forest, a sudden storm separates them from the rest of the class.
Snow Bears
Director(s): Emily Driscoll | Country of Origin: Not Specified
Synopsis not provided in the festival database.
Territory
Director(s): Bei Yong | Country of Origin: Canada
Territory is an observational documentary that follows a territorial dispute between a pair of Trumpeter Swans and several Canada Goose couples in a suburban Ontario valley. Through a series of encounters, the film reveals bonds, conflicts, fears, acts of care, and struggles for belonging that challenge the distance we often place between ourselves and the wildlife around us. As human intervention restores a species once hunted to local extinction, others find themselves pushed to the margins.
To Hear The Trees Speak – Adventures In Listening – Olivia Sprinkel Documentary
Director(s): ian Eric Finch | Country of Origin: United Kingdom
“To Hear The Trees Speak” is a short cinematic memoir from filmmaker Ian Finch ( Walk Wild ) and writer Olivia Sprinkel, based on her journey across the world to uncover the wisdom held within 10 trees. From the echoes of childhood forests to ancient landscapes stretching from India to Ecuador, this short poetic documentary explores her relationship with nature, memory, healing, and belonging. “To Hear The Trees Speak” invites viewers to consider the importance of the invisible bond between people and nature. This is more than a film about trees, it’s a journey into connection, spirituality, travel and ecology.