Showcase of the best films in the world today.
Audience Awards (from FEEDBACK Festival):
Best Feature Film: The Greatest Soul on Earth
Best Short Film: The Vanishing Fish
Best Micro-Short Film: Friend of Future Chicken: NASA’s JPL Scientist talks to FC about the Earth!
Best Direction: Equilibrium
Best Story: 2020: The Cosmic Mandate
Best Visual Design: Refugia: Animated Stories of Nature Thriving Through Collapse
The Greatest Soul on Earth, 100min., South Africa
Directed by Lee Thomas Doig
Every winter, billions of sardines embark on a perilous journey along South Africa’s Wild Coast. To science, this is an “ecological trap” a mass migration driven by ancient genetics that often leads into predator-rich, warm waters. To the indigenous people of South Africa, it is a sacred inheritance, a seasonal pulse of life that connects the community to the rhythm of the ancestors and the sea. Two young marine scientists go on a journey to explore the sardine run and interrogate their cultural beliefs alongside their scientific knowledge.
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-the-greatest
Refugia: Animated Stories of Nature Thriving Through Collapse, 3min., Colombia
Directed by Lina Herrera, Natalia Romero, Cristian Barbosa, Gabriela Franco Prieto, Isabel Cavelier Adarve, mundo común
Among the cracks of the Anthropocene, sometimes it seems that we exist separated from the living world that surrounds us. That the present in crisis is the only possible trajectory and that our human identity has no alternative other than a straight line that grows, devastates, and destroys exponentially. In moments like this, the whispers of care and the sketches of interdependence become what science calls “Refugia”—pockets of seeds that safeguard the possibility of life through collapse. Through hand-illustrated frame-by-frame animation, and a story that seems whispered in one’s ear, this short film is a sensitive invitation to revere and allow ourselves to be guided by the resilience mechanisms of the Nature of which we are part. A bio-poetic reflection on radical interdependence and the possibility of re-inhabiting a common world.
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-refugia
Friend of Future Chicken: NASA’s JPL Scientist talks to FC about the Earth!, 6min., Canada
Directed by Jocelan Thiessen, Jill Hotchkiss
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-friend-of-future-chicken
The Vanishing Fish, 22min., Thailand
Directed by Kantapat Phutthamkul
“The Disappearance of Thai Mackerel”
Thai short mackerel (Pla Tu) is critically endangered, with annual yields crashing from 140,000 to just 30,000 tons. This crisis is driven by aggressive overfishing, the use of destructive small-mesh nets that wipe out juveniles, and climate change disrupting marine ecosystems. To save this culinary icon, we must strictly enforce fishing regulations, stop consuming baby fish, and actively combat climate change before it completely vanishes from Thai seas.
https://www.instagram.com/golfwashere
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-the-vanishing-fish
Equilibrium, 49min., Italy
Directed by Federico Santini
Raising sheep to produce cheese, hides, wool, and meat is perhaps the oldest profession in the world. Lately, more and more young people are looking at this lifestyle with interest. Marika is one of them.
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-equilibrium
2020: The Cosmic Mandate, 13min., UK
Directed by Susan Lim
Amidst the 2020 devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic and raging California wildfires, this animated short film charts a mission to space, powered by human resilience and the hopeful launch of NASA astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-2020
