Maryland, USA University of Seville, Spain Grasshoppers have been admired and villainized throughout history. They have experienced significant changes in our world, including those most recently induced by humankind, having to adjust and resist individually and collectively. The film navigates current challenges capitalism has posed on the environment through the lens of this millenary species in rural Maryland. Can grasshoppers show more humanity than humans? This film explores how the current relations of production and intensive use of land affect the environment through the lenses of grasshoppers, a species that has been around for over 250 million years. The filmmakers start from the idea that our world has a form. Mountains, rivers, trees, and bushes… are the result of thousands of years of evolution. They have grown, adjusted, and mutated. But landscapes would not be without human perception, which has always been conditioned to human needs. People have taken whatever they needed from nature to survive and, in the process, have created a way to understand it. Like many other species, human relationships with the environment have never been peaceful. But it has become more violent as the centuries have gone by, first through capitalism organizing spatial relations (land grabs, imperialism) and in recent times because of world population increasing at a similar pace as greed. The film focuses on this evolution, exposing the contradictions of our actions as a species.

Industrial agriculture has failed to solve hunger, decimated rural communities, and had severe ecological consequences. So why is this model being exported to Africa and promoted in international policy circles? Our film sought to investigate the role of the Gates Foundation and other philanthrocapitalist endeavors in pushing industrial and high tech forms of agriculture on farmers in Africa, and demonstrate how and why these efforts are exacerbating hunger and inequality, rather than solving them. We also wanted to highlight widespread resistance by civil society organizations and farmers, who have been developing and practicing sustainable agroecological alternatives that offer greater promise in ensuring food security and addressing climate change. Rich Appetites Film 1: The Foundation is the first short film in a 5 part series. The other titles in the series include Seeds, Money, Science, and Agroecology in Action. In the process of conducting research for the film series, we identified a number of ways that the Gates Foundation is exerting undue influence over food politics at the global and regional scales--from pushing restrictive seed laws, to shaping the priorities of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Through interviews, we also documented a number of stories about the negative impact Gates Foundation funding has had on many farmers and rural communities, and were able to use the power of storytelling to demonstrate the political and ecological possibilities of agroecology as an alternative model. Film-making allowed us to bring our ongoing research to life in a new way, and to reach new audiences by creating compelling, shareable narratives. In particular, it helped us recognize the need to incorporate real people's voices and faces into this research, to create connections and concern. At times, it was hard to arrange interviews across multiple timezones and with spotty internet connections (especially in rural areas). However, this was important to us to try to include a diversity of voices in the project, without having the budget to travel extensively. We also feel that given the climate crisis, flying to all of these places to interview people is ecologically irresponsible and unjustifiable. We are proud and pleased with how we were able to create global films that are more climate-friendly.

Portugal Spain Guadiana in Four Movements explores the present and future of the estuary of the transboundary Guadiana River (Iberian Peninsula). Crafted with found footage, images and soundscapes collected during fieldwork in the region, the piece also makes use of data sonification based on current climate models. In an attempt to grasp the overwhelming data-driven climate change scenarios, data sonification provides a more comprehensible experience of the intricate dynamics of this region in their susceptibility, dissimilarity and complexity. The Guadiana estuary presents a revealing case study on the impacts of climate change on fragile biodiversity in the Iberian Peninsula. From the 13th century, the estuary acted as an imaginary borderline between Portugal and Spain. In 1926, upon the Convention of Limits, an agreement on the official border demarcation was eventually reached. The word “limit” referred solely to the legally binding abrupt frontier in the middle of a river between two riparian states. Since then, other sorts of (planetary) limits have also been acknowledged. Despite being highly susceptible to flooding, aridity, water scarcity, drought and salinisation, Guadiana continues to be used for power generation, hyper-intensive agriculture, cattle grazing, and tourism. But how can we address via audio and film present and future scenarios?

Yogyakarta, Indonesia Indonesian/English A short documentary portraying the creative response of street artist to environmental issues, especially in urban spaces. The distinctive voices of artists enrich the horizon of the discourse of environmental communication. The documentary argues that collaboration among academia, artists, and the public is pivotal to encouraging people's awareness of the current environment situation. The Director states: This film is part of my doctoral research on the practice of street art in the signification and production of space. It is pivotal as the research (visual) data to investigate the practice of street art in Yogyakarta responding to urban issues, especially environmental problems. Making films during a pandemic situation is very challenging. The social distancing policy restricts outdoor activities and social contact. Besides, I also have to adjust the activities of street artists. We had a lot of discussions to come up with ideas that can be visualized. Making street artworks in public spaces must also involve the public in obtaining permission to use their properties, and at the same time, involve them in the process of visual art making.

Portugal French and Portuguese. English subtitles This coming of age film follows Filipe and Hugo while they spend the summer in Trás-os-Montes, Portugal. From childhood memories, lazy summers filled with boredom, to their aspirations of a better life, the film explores the ambiguous relationship these youngsters foster with rural Portugal, and their way they navigate across various identities, languages and terrains. Then Director writes: Film-making was a central component of the project, since the research design. It enabled to create a long term relation with the participants, and to access their memories and imaginations. But also, in a project focusing on the making of places in peripheries, it enabled me to highlight particular landscapes and rural areas' atmospheres and architectures. Portugal is a country of emigration: one in five Portuguese live abroad. In the last decades, the regions bordering Spain are the most affected by these departures In the northeastern region of Trás-os-Montes, a third of the population has left since the 1960s. This is where I met with two youngsters, sons and grandsons of emigrants: Hugo and Filipe. Hugo lives close to Paris and spends every summer at his grandparents’ in Trás-os-Montes. There he reconnects to his roots and the slow pace of the village. Filipe did the same: for years, he spent every summer at his grandma’s before his family eventually moved back to Portugal, a few kilometres from his grandma’s home. But what awaited him once he graduated from the local college? As many before him, he emigrated. When we meet, during the summer 2019, he works in London. In February 2020, the world enters a pandemic Filipe is laid off, he packs and comes back to his village in Portugal. Filipe dreams of new horizons, and the answer lays in front of him of going back to where he was born, Paris. While Hugo, in Paris, dreams of living and working in Portugal but, not in the village, not in Trás-os-Montes This is a film about a region which performs as a shrine, a physical container of memories of happy childhoods and simpler times, that one visits once a year and puts a small bouquet of flowers at its feet. Some stay close-by, and live out of its pilgrims, but very few are able to experience it as a real and viable home.

Australia The methodology is creative practice research to explore how using interview as a method changes the way we film and understand nature. This short film aims to challenge the viewers current relationship to nature. Composer Gail Priest has been exploring how much stretching can the “figure” (of the voice, the field recording, the word even) take before it breaks and becomes abstract filaments. Her work approaches this duality as an exploration of areas of slippage. The sonic results tend towards the hyper-dynamic and super-saturated always attempting to sensorially immerse the listener and heighten awareness of the aural realm. This film combines the two approaches to with the aim to create an audio-visual experience for the audience designed to shift perspectives on nature.

Cairo, Egypt Arabic with English Subtitles One of five short films made by young residents of Al Khalifa neighbourhood in Cairo, Egypt. In Through Our Eyes the filmmakers decided to look at their urban environment through the eyes of some local animal inhabitants. Made during the Urban Dreams filmmaking workshop. During their two week mid-year school break in 2023, young residents of the al-Khalifa neighbourhood in historic Cairo. got acquainted with urban wildlife helped by various field visits inside and outside the neighbourhood. The young filmmakers then went on to conceptualise, draft and shoot their short films using their phones, in order to share stories of place that reveal their relationship with Al-Khalifa’s natural and urban heritage. Winner of the International Union of Architects (UIA) 2023 Golden Cubes Award (Audio Visual Category)

Amazon, Brazil London Uk English The Director writes: ‘The Amazon As A Garden’ attempts to bring faraway places closer together. To begin taking meaningful action to save places such as the Amazon Rainforest, the first step is to properly understand, to relate to it. Here in the West, gardens can be seen as simply a patch at the back of our homes; humble yet unimportant. In the Amazon, the garden engulfs all aspects of life. The ‘garden’ acts as an umbrella term for all the spaces where we interact with nature – natural and manmade. The principles behind each of them, however, are fundamentally the same… I began being fascinated by gardens when I picked up a small gardening job over summer 2020. The fact that it is culturally embedded into our lives that our homes have a garden. I wanted to explore the relationship the humans in the Amazon rainforest have with their 'gardens', which for them are not merely at the back of their homes, but ARE their homes.

Maharashtra, India Edinburgh, UK Marathi, English The Directors write: The Sugarcane Industry in Maharashtra, India is a highly lucrative and profitable business. However, a large portion of this business is built upon the labour of migrants who work under highly exploitative conditions. Between the droughts that force them to migrate in search of employment and survival, and the harsh working conditions at the plantations, sugarcane cutters have found themselves in a self consuming spiral that has lasted generations. Facing neglect from the Government and the factory owners, these labourers are left to their own devices in order to survive on a day to day basis. Through this film, we aim to capture the lived experiences of the sugarcane labourers while at home during the monsoons, the only time of year they’re able to cultivate the lands they own, through conversations. At the same time, we wanted to try to understand how this cycle perpetuates through the system in place.

Idukki, Kerala, India Edinburgh, UK Malayalam, English Director writes: The narratives around climate change ask all of us to make sacrifices. But depending upon a person’s socioeconomic geographical background, the inequity in these sacrifices can be huge. Coming under ‘climate justice’, it needs more attention in order to make our climate change interventions equitable and sustainable. It was the first time the filmmakers involved were introduced to the idea of climate justice and the nuances and conflicts that run with it. It also showed us how climate change as a problem is not merely environmental but also social and political as it, like all great dangers, exacerbates underlying conflicts.