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Sierra Club Productions
Energy Film Festival: Solutions for a Warming Planet
The Sierra Club is bringing the excitement of film festivals to cities across the country. Launched in 2006, the Solutions for a Warming Planet festival continues through 2009. You provide your love of film and desire to build a sustainable energy future, and we'll provide the films, inspiration and blueprint.
Current festivals are focusing on coal and energy. Coal-fired power plants provide almost half of our nation's power and almost 40 percent of the United States' annual carbon dioxide emissions. Despite those facts, the coal industry plans more than 100 new coal-fired power plants around the country. Learn more about the impact of coal on our environment with these great films.
Want to know if a festival is planned in your area? Contact your local chapter to see if they one in the works. More questions? Want to host a festival? Contact screening.info@sierraclub.org.
Coal Films
The Appalachians (MTR Section)
The powerful segment on mountain-top removal (MTR) in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia from The Appalachians, a compelling film about the past, present and future of Appalachia. (20 minutes)
Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars
Narrated by Robert Redford, this high-stakes battle for clean air centers around unlikely partners — mayors, ranchers, lawyers, cities, citizens, green groups, and CEO's— coming together to oppose the construction of 18 coal-fired power plants in Eastern and Central Texas fast-tracked by the Texas Governor. (34 minutes) 2008 Alpheus Media.
Mountain Top Removal
Featuring Mountain Justice Summer activists and Coal River valley residents Ed Wiley, Maria Gunnoe, and Larry Gibson, this feature documentary film also includes Judy Bonds, Big Coal author Jeff Goodell, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin and more. Produced and directed by Michael C O'Connell. (74 minutes) 2007, Haw River Films.
Rise Up West Virginia
Filmmaker B. J. Gudmundsson journies from her life-long home in the eastern mountains of West Virginia to the southern coalfields of her beloved state. Once there, she joins the Mountain Keepers who have been fighting a 20-year battle to save their homes from the destructive practice of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining. (73 minutes) 2008 PatchWork Films.
Mountain Mourning
In the Southern Appalachian Mountains, a coal-mining process known as Mountaintop Removal is devastating the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Our oldest mountaintops vanish, and residents are abandoned in "the sacrifice zone." Bonus short films: "The Mountain Mourning Collection" , "Mountain Mourning" , "Look What They've Done", "Keeper of the Mountains", "A Call to Action" and "Bringing Down the Mountains" excerpts. (78 minutes total) 2006, BJ Gunmundsson.
Burning the Future: Coal in American
This film examines the conflict between the coal industry and residents of West Virginia. Local activists watch the nation praise coal without regard to the devastation caused by its extraction. Our heroes fight to protect their mountains, save their families, and preserve their way of life. (89 minutes) 2008, David Novak.
Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action
A ninety-minute documentary that takes a hard look at the stories of five remarkable Native American activists in four communities who are fighting the "new Indian Wars." (88 minutes).
Kilowatt Ours
Filmmaker Jeff Barrie takes viewers on a journey from the coal mines of West Virginia to the solar panel fields of Florida as he discovers solutions to America's energy related problems. (38 minutes).
Faith and Mountain-top Removal
Local residents discuss their connection with the land and their faith and their sorrow of the devastation that mountaintop removal has done to their communities. (6 minutes) 2008 Evening Star Productions.
Energy Films
Oil on Ice
An intimate portrayal of the native Gwich'in Indians taking on powerful global energy interests to prevent invasive oil operations in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's fragile caribou calving grounds. (50 minutes).
Crude Impact
A powerful and timely exploration of the interconnection between human domination of the planet and the discovery and use of oil, this documentary exposes our deep-rooted dependency on the availability of fossil fuel energy and examines the dire implications of the pending threat of global peak oil. (98 minutes).
Native Wind
Native American tribes on the northern Great Plains can harness enough wind energy to provide our nation with one-third of all annual electricity consumption. A one-minute PSA about the first utility-scale wind turbine erected on tribal lands. (1 minute).
A Land out of Time
Time is running out for vast swaths of the Rocky Mountain West as millions of acres of public land are exploited for oil and gas drilling. Westerners on the land for generations expose the dramatic changes to the landscape and their heritage and spark a backlash.
Out of Balance: ExxonMobil's Impact on Climate Change
This film shows the influence that the largest company in the world has on governments, the media, and citizens. "Out of Balance" also offers challenging, large-scale ideas for global social changes to save our planet for future generations. (60 minutes).
The True Cost of Food
This animated video takes a light approach to explaining the hidden costs of mass-produced food and about alternatives that are kinder to the planet. (15 minutes).
Range Wars
In the West, the Bureau of Land Management has allowed increased drilling and drilling practices that are killing ranchers' cattle. This beautifully shot documentary follows a coalition of ranchers including Republicans and Bush supporters in New Mexico who are fighting back. (28 minutes).
Wind Over Water
In November 2001, Cape Wind Associates of Boston announced plans for America's first offshore windfarm. Almost immediately, a battle between environmentalists and residents on the Cape was born. Journalist Ole Tangen, Jr. was on hand to chronicle the fight in this fascinating documentary about land and the future of renewable energy. (15 minutes).