Atmosphere

Content Project

A Fierce Green Fire is the first big-picture synthesis of environmentalism - grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years worldwide. It tells the story of the environmental movement from conservation to climate change. We focus on activism -- people fighting to save their homes, their lives, the future. Our concerns are connecting causes, how the issues grew, exploring ideas and the evolution of a vision. The common theme is a struggle to save nature against the destructive impact of humanity – from halting dams in the Grand Canyon to battling 20,000 tons of toxic waste at Love Canal; from Greenpeace saving the whales to Chico Mendes and the rubbertappers saving the Amazon; from climate change to the promise of transforming our civilization. Our thesis is that this is the time when mankind must learn to live with nature, move beyond the exploitation at the heart of industrial society and find a way based on biology, balancing human needs with the natural world that sustains us, creating a living planet. As Stewart Brand says in the film, “We’re not passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are Spaceship Earth. We are Gaia.”  

Content Project

Harlem’s Mart 125: The American Dream is a documentary that tells the tale of the epic struggle and complexities surrounding the redevelopment of Harlem.

Content Project

COOKED, a feature documentary film and engagement campaign, starts with one of thedeadliest heat waves in U.S. history and evolves into a serious yet quirkyexploration into the politics of disaster. Along the way, it presents questions and "best-case" scenarios - the kind every U.S.city could (and should) ask, answer and strive for.

What if poverty were treated as if it were an "emergency"? Can we turn the nation's obsessionwith "disaster preparedness" [fast becoming a growth industry] into amovement built on the preemptive power of community resilience?

Content Project

Song of the Bird King is a 90 min documentary about two musicians who follow the almost extinct Bird King in the sky and find and meet seven disappearing tribes across the Philippine Islands. While it might be too late to reverse the environmental devastation threatening the tribes' existence, the two set up to record their oral traditions, music and dance before their existence becomes definite and irreversible.

Content Project

Ipuina Kontatu: The Basque Way is a documentary which explores 25 centuries of Basque culture and considers its preservation as a tale about the twin possibilities of tradition and innovation. The dramatic struggle of adoption and adaptation by which Basque culture has flourished while preserving its ancient roots offers a paradigm by which to consider the essential core of cultural identities and their situation in our modern and global society.

Content Project

What is Philanthropy? explores the historical and current role philanthropy plays in American culture and society for the primary purpose of enhancing our understanding and inspiring our participation.

Content Project

The Vanishing of the Bees, a feature-length documentary, takes a piercing look at the economic, political and spiritual implications of the world wide disappearance of the honeybee, a keystone species vital to sustaining our ecosystem.

Content Project

Bestselling author William Least Heat-Moon reunites with Chase County, Kansas to experience one of America's most environmentally advanced communities in "Return to PrairyErth." The Center for Independent Documentary is serving as fiscal sponsor for the film project.

Content Project

CHILDREN OF THE AMAZON, an award-winning documentary, follows Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol as she travels a modern highway deep into the Amazon in search of the Indigenous children she photographed fifteen years ago. Part road movie, part time travel, her journey tells the story of what happened to life in the largest forest on Earth when a road was built straight through its heart.