Check Out Past CEFF Films
Explore our collection of the 2016 festival films now available for streaming and click on titles for descriptions. Titles in green indicate films featured in the CEFF 4 Kids screening, and titles with a $ indicate films available to rent.
A Journey to a Foam Free Future (2016)
PLAY NOW (9 minutes)
Featured in 2016 CEFF 4 Kids Screening
Four high school students share their experience working on the Foam Free Future project to reduce the use of EPS foam take-out containers on Maui and attending an international youth summit on plastic pollution.
Directed by: Danica Brown, Kaimana Idica, Dylan Falces, Tierra Bartolotti
A Quest for Meaning (2016) - $
RENT NOW (1 hour 28 minutes)
Winner of 2016 CEFF Best Feature Film Award
Two childhood friends travel the world to meet some of the greatest thinkers of our time. This incredible voyage, full of moments of doubt and moments of joy, will lead them to question the very beliefs that have shaped Western civilization. This film captures the change in human consciousness currently happening all over the planet, and the desire to live in harmony with oneself and the world.
Directed by: Nathanaël Coste & Marc de la Ménardière
ATTO: An Adventure in the Amazon (2016)
This short documentary highlights a spectacular and unique international science research project: The construction of a 1000-foot-tall measurement tower in the middle of the Amazon rainforest.
Directed by: Claire Andreae
Bees 'n Trees (2016)
Armed with a chainsaw and harness, arborist Ryan Bartlett rescues and relocates beehives from urban trees that are on the chopping block. Ryan’s unique Zen-like approach to tree cutting shows us how we can all employ respect, peace, and balance in our work. Ryan has saved fourteen beehives from being destroyed and made thousands of flowers and trees happy.
Directed by: Dawn George
Behind the Emerald Curtain (2016)
Oregon is perceived as a green progressive state but the logging laws lag far behind other states and fail to protect public health and the commons. From toxic herbicides being sprayed on communities and watersheds to iconic rivers being logged off in the past 10 years. Communities and ecosystems are suffering and paying the price as multi-national corporate logging companies make record profits.
Directed by: Shane Anderson
Better Tomorrows (2016)
PLAY NOW (4 minutes)
Featured in 2016 CEFF 4 Kids Screening
A motion graphics animation that explores the issue of climate change.
Directed by: Breana Mallamaci
Breaking Through, the Story of Larry Fivecoats (2016)
PLAY NOW (13 minutes)
Larry Fivecoats served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. In that time, Larry was involved in over 150 firefights and witnessed very heavy casualties. When he returned from war, he found himself struggling with the lasting symptoms of PTSD and depression, and began to contemplate suicide. Then Larry was introduced to Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing.
Directed by: Scott Thompson
Caste A Wave (2016)
PLAY NOW (22 minutes)
Featured in 2016 CEFF 4 Kids Screening
This groundbreaking short film takes audiences to the small fishing village of Mahabalipuram on the Indian east coast. We see firsthand how surf culture is impacting the community and how a new wave of connectivity between Indians and their once-feared ocean has given birth to a model for global environmental transformation.
Directed by: Fancy Fechser
Crying Earth Rise Up (2016) - $
Crying Earth Rise Up is a compelling story of the human cost of uranium mining and its impact on the water, land and people of the Great Plains.
Directed by: Suree Towfighnia
Distress Call (2016)
PLAY NOW (15 minutes)
Winner of 2016 CEFF Best Youth Film Award
Featured in 2016 CEFF 4 Kids Screening
Protection League visits Earth to find that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are reaching dangerous levels. With the help of their super-computer Ziri, the aliens explore the causes and consequences of Earth’s changing climate before recruiting a young earthling to help warn his fellow humans.
Directed by: Sean Fleetham, Brooklyn Goosby, Lexi Justus and Taylor Redman
En la Orilla (At the Edge) (2016)
A personal story about a family living at the edge of their means in a small and remote fishing village in the Gulf of California, Mexico. This film explores the beauty of life on the water, the frustrations and worry caused by dwindling fish populations, and the pride and satisfaction a fisher feels when he makes a good catch.
Directed by: Liza Hoos & Xavier Basurto
Far Afield: A Conservation Love Story (2016) - $
Bert Raynes, a boy from the streets of New Jersey discovers the two great loves of his life: nature and Meg, his wife and muse. Drawn to the natural beauty of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Meg and Bert foster a community of wildlife lovers, motivating them to become a force for nature. With a keen intellect, sharp wit and twinkle in his eye, this 91-year-old inspires young and old to observe and care about their wild neighbors.
Directed by: Jennifer Tennican
Field Biologist (2016)
Once upon a time in a Costa Rican forest… A story about biodiversity and life.
Directed by: Jared Flesher
Fragile Legacy (2016) - $
Science, art, history and conservation are blended into a stunning visual, globe-spanning odyssey. This film offers hope that human ingenuity and creativity can and will bring us out of the environmental crisis we face.
Directed by: David O. Brown
Free Flight (2016) - $
The film follows the efforts of a group of conservationists to save the last remaining colony of scarlet macaws remaining in Honduras. Shot on location in La Mosquitia, where both the birds and the native inhabitants are fighting imminent extinction.
Directed by: Denise Richards
In Search of Balance (2016)
An exploration of a new paradigm of health, science, and medicine, based on the interconnections between us and nature.
Directed by: Adam Pfleghaar
Keep It Grand (2016)
The Grand Canyon is a world heritage site of breathtaking beauty, where rivers meet and some believe life began. But today, it’s also where two drastically opposed viewpoints converge and clash. A developer has plans to build a gigantic tourist settlement there, while Native Americans are fighting to protect land they view as sacred, and environmentalists are up in arms about the impact on water supply and ecology that the construction project and its aftermath would bring.
Directed by: Daniel Ferrara
Lifeline (2016)
Mr. Guo is the only person who lives in a traditional village which is hidden in the mountains. Fortune-telling to others is his only thing there. Suddenly, he finds a big secret. It seems a huge catastrophe is coming…
Directed by: Li Bin
My Hottest Year on Earth (2016)
A Danish weatherman quit his job in order to travel around the globe. He wants to meet some of the people whose lives have been turned upside down due to extreme weather events. His journey begins in the Philippines right after Hayan, the worst typhoon to ever hit the islands. The journey depicts record drought and flooding and 2014 proves to be the hottest year in history. Climate change results in millions of refugees and sea-level rise now threatens one of the richest countries in the world.
Directed by: Halfdan Muurholm
Nature's Orchestra (2016) - $
Follow Bernie Krause on a soundscape expedition in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. To record habitats that are neither disturbed nor destroyed by human activities, nature sound recordists have to travel far. Along with animal voices, including migratory bird songs, the barking of a fox, and a grizzly’s sniff, the expedition records the melting of permafrost and other evidence of climate change.
Directed by: Stephen Most
Now We Are Taller Than Trees (2016)
Asma, a 6-year-old girl chooses nature as the painting subject, but as the painting is getting finished, a loud noise gets her attention. When she looks outside she changes her mind about the painting. Asma starts erasing and replacing different elements, until something stops her.
Directed by: Mehrdad Eghbali
Old Skill, New Use (2016)
PLAY NOW (2 minutes)
Featured in 2016 CEFF 4 Kids Screening
Primitive skills practitioner Doug Hill uses a traditional skill to tackle a new challenge.
Directed by: Doug Hill
ONE - Protect the White Nile River (2016)
ONE river (The White Nile in Uganda) whose rapids have been destroyed by ONE dam. ONE village was promised power and instead got poverty. ONE community is determined not to let it happen again.
Directed by: Polly Green
Our Eagles (2016)
A comical yet insightful look into the phenomenal popularity of the Decorah Eagle Cam, the most-viewed live stream in internet history.
Directed by: Emily Tope
Our Water (2016)
This film gives you the message of the indigenous people of the American Southwest. They talk about environmental and cultural damage – are we OK with this?
Directed by: Kiril Kirkov
Sharing The Secrets (2016)
A film millions of years in the making. The Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia area is home to the highest concentration of caves in the United States. Sharing The Secrets is a documentary that showcases these amazing ecosystems and the importance of conserving them. From rappelling deep pit caves, to discovering the delicate life forms that inhabit these environments, Sharing The Secrets offers a broad perspective on not only the beauty of caves, but also their significance.
Directed by: Drew Perlmutter
Stung by Climate (2016)
PLAY NOW (33 minutes)
Winner of 2016 CEFF Best Short Film Award
Featured in 2016 CEFF 4 Kids Screening
Beekeepers are deeply concerned about the health and survival of their colonies. The extreme and unpredictable weather associated with climate change is taking its toll, and bees are dying. Unfortunately, the challenges beekeepers face are just the tip of a much larger problem. This isn’t only about honey production; it’s about crop pollination, which in turn impacts the supply and cost of food for people around the world. Are we heading towards a pollination disaster?
Directed by: Nils Aucante
Taming the Teesta (2016)
Taming the Teesta traces India’s mighty Teesta River upstream from the plains of West Bengal to its churning headwaters high in the Himalayas. Along the way, the film tells the story of those fighting back against the rampant hydroelectric development taking place along the river’s course and exposes the gross injustices done to the region’s unique peoples and environment by those who seek to dam the Teesta.
Directed by: Taylor Graham
The Adventures of Fast Food Fighters (2016)
PLAY NOW (8 minutes)
Featured in 2016 CEFF 4 Kids Screening
While eating fast food and playing Super Mario, two teenagers are sucked into a video game world where they learn about the impacts of the fast-food industry and factory farming.
Directed by: Ryan Sammon, Namaka Cosma-White, Joshua Henkel, Natalia Polinskey
The Anthropologist (2016) - $
The much anticipated film highlight how societies deal with changing environments and social ideas by examining these timely concerns through the lives of famed anthropologists, Margaret Mead and Susie Crate. Their daughters, Mary Catherine Bateson and Katie Yegorov-Crate, will share their mother’s lives and work with the audience.
Directed by: Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, Jeremy Newberger
The End of the Line (2016)
PLAY NOW (1 hour 25 minutes)
Winner of 2016 CEFF Spirit of Activism Award
Join a grassroots coalition as they rise up against the fracking industry to stop a controversial hazardous liquids pipeline in Kentucky.
Directed by: Sellus Wilder
The Forgotten Tigers (2016)
As the world sleeps, in the dead of night, Tigers roam the fringes of the villages and towns. This is a reality, which has come to stay in some parts of India. With shrinking forests and eroding legal protections, the tiger’s space is being squeezed. The Forgotten Tigers, takes a peep into the lives of these tigers that live outside the Tiger Reserves.
Directed by: Krishnendu Bose
The Great Divide (2016) - $
The Great Divide is a feature length documentary about the history and future of water in Colorado and the west, and its influence in both connecting and dividing the region. From Ancient Puebloan cultures and the gold rush origins of Colorado water law, to agriculture, dams, diversions and conservation; the film approaches this complex subject from a wide range of contemporary and historical perspectives.
Directed by: James Havey
The Sustainable (2016)
The Sustainable is a documentary that tells the story of Tom and Roberta Stock, a couple who designed and built their home to not only conserve energy, but produce it as well.
Directed by: Justin Cerone
Time Capsule: Light, Science and the Era of Man (2016)
PLAY NOW (29 minutes)
Winner of 2016 CEFF Best of the Fest Award
Fourteen billion years of evolution and here we are. Now what?
Directed by: Chris Summerfield
Unacceptable Risk: Firefighters on the Front Lines of Climate Change (2016)
Four Colorado firefighters – who have battled some of the state’s epic wildfires of the past decade – make the connection between wildfire and climate change.
Directed by: Ted Wood and Daniel Glick
What You Can Do - Drought, Extreme Weather and our Marine Animals (2016)
PLAY NOW (5 minutes)
Featured in 2016 CEFF 4 Kids Screening
A severe drought is currently affecting California and much of the American West. Jim Covel, Director of Guest Experience Training and Interpretation at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, explains the current factors contributing to this drought and how it is impacting ocean life.
Directed by: Alicia Arinella
Written on Water (2016) - $
Against the immense, harsh landscape of the High Plains farmers and politicians fight to keep their towns alive against the decline of the life-giving Ogallala Aquifer. In West Texas and other communities that share the Ogallala, the reality of groundwater decline is colliding with the legacy of independence and self-reliance that turned the High Plains into a fertile dreamscape.
Directed by: Merri Lisa Trigilio