April 2025 ENVIRONMENTAL Festival Highlights

A showcase of the best Environmental Films in the world today.

AUDIENCE AWARDS:

Feature Film: INSECT O CIDE
Best Direction: Mosnel di Franciacorta
Best Cinematography: Ice Breath
Best Micro-Short: 2124
Best Short Film: Frozen Waters
Best Music Video: Wings of Gold
Best Story: Baka, The Wisdom Of The Forest

See the Full Lineup of Films:

INSECT O CIDE, 76min., UK
Directed by Georgina Willis
We are fast approaching an Insect Armageddon. Insect_O_Cide is narrated by the Times Bestseller author Professor Dave Goulson, and explores the reasons for the dramatic insect declines occurring worldwide. Dame Joanna Lumley after seeing the film said “watch this heartbreaking and important film. It is enraging and inspiring at the same time: we can make good the harm we have done, but only if we start now, right this very second.”

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-insectocide

Mosnel di Franciacorta, 28min., Italy
Directed by Massimo Zanichelli
Twenty-eight minutes, which are an exciting journey into memory, remembering the figure of Emanuela Barzanò Barboglio, pioneer of the Franciacorta area and mother of Giulio and Lucia Barzanò, and above all in the present of the company, which Zanichelli interprets by showing in a poetic way the work in the countryside and in the cellar during the succession of the seasons.

http://www.mosnel.com/

https://www.instagram.com/ilmosnel

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-mosnel-di-fran

ICE BREATH, 43min,. Romania
Directed by Leonard Alecu
Between 2015 and 2024, Leonard Alecu filmed the melting icebergs off Greenland’s East coast. Sailing dangerously close to icebergs, Alecu handled his camera to record the ice masses yielding to the ruthless ocean. Filmed in black and white, Ice Breath is a cinematic poem whose only elusive actor is the filmmaker’s gaze. In 43 minutes, a sequence of flat pictures turn into dynamic tableaux, an existential journey from genesis to extinction. The hypnotic feature of the film is enhanced by the soundtrack Become Ocean, a haunting composition by John Luther Adams suggestive of a relentless tidal surge, of melting polar ice and rising sea levels. Become Ocean received critical acclaim, earning the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the 2015 Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. More than an environmental documentary, Ice Breath and Become Ocean is an experimental fusion exploring the vast, inscrutable meanings of climate change.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-ice-breath-film

2124, 4min., USA
Directed by Konstantine Vlasis, Marcus Neudigate
Data sonification of glacial change over the next century.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-2124

FROZEN WATERS, 25min., USA
Directed by Anastasia Fetisov
Frozen Waters chronicles the awe-inspiring journey of endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh as he becomes the first person to swim beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet. In this historic feat, Pugh swims 1 kilometre through subglacial rivers, navigating icy tunnels and freezing waters, all while advocating for the protection of the planet’s oceans. The documentary captures not only the physical challenge but also the urgent environmental message behind his swim, highlighting the delicate balance of Antarctica’s ecosystem and the global consequences of climate change. Through Frozen Waters, Pugh’s mission for marine conservation comes to life, urging world leaders to act before it’s too late. The film is a powerful call to action, showing the connection between human resilience and environmental preservation.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-frozen-waters

WINGS OF GOLD, 6min,. India
Directed by Sanjeev Venkataramanan, Navaneeth Krishnan
Presenting Wings of Gold – A Symphonic Thillana in Hamir Kalyani —a groundbreaking musical experience where the grandeur of symphonic orchestration meets the timeless beauty of Carnatic music.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-wings-of-gold

Baka, The Wisdom Of The Forest, 46min., Cameroon
Directed by Rui Diogo, Denis Ndeloh, Muleng Timngun
At a time of international chaotic events, wars, global warming, and ecological collapse of several crucial global habitats, it is urgent to pay attention to, and learn from, indigenous groups that have lived in complete balance with other organisms for millennia. Among the very few human groups that have some members that still live completely in tropical forests, the Baka is one of the oldest ones – they have lived in the Congo basin forests of Africa for more than 50,000 years. No other group knows the forest, the behavior of its animals, the medical properties of its plants, and the very delicate ecological connections between them and all other organisms, as the Baka.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-baka-the-wisdom