Also in this week’s roundup: don’t miss a sneak peak of the upcoming climate narrative film Alfalfa, your final chance to catch The Unfixing in NYC, our upcoming Anew Café takeover, and a CFF film alum that needs a little push to reach the big screen.

In this Newsletter:

• 🌇 Starts Today! CFF x Global Rise Workshop Series: The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice

• 🌱 Sneak Peak: Alfalfa: The Future of Climate Storytelling

• ☕️ CFF Takeover at Anew Café

• 🎬 The Unfixing: Final NYC Screening

• ⚙️ Crowdfunding Request: Help Get Valve Turners (CFF ’24 Climate Action Film Award Winner) Streaming & In Theaters!

• 🌿 Opportunities & Events

🌇 Starts Today! CFF x Global Rise Workshop Series: The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice

We’re teaming up with ​Global Rise: Stories for the Future to present three free workshops for climate storytellers to imagine new stories that illuminate climate justice. All experience levels welcome!

The series kicks off this week with our first interactive workshop:

Workshop #1: The Multidimensional Challenges of Climate Justice.

📆 When: Tuesday, May 26 from 5-8pm

📍 Where: Anew, 526 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

We’ll open with conversation among policy advocates, community organizers, and experts about the new climate justice narratives we need for our city. Speakers will include:

• Chris Dobens, Director of Communications, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

• Lonnie Portis, Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

• Memphis Washington, Community Outreach & Engagement AmeriCorps Member, Waterfront Alliance

Through guided prompts and collaborative exercises, we’ll begin mapping a creative narrative response in the medium of your choice (film, creative writing, journalism, and more all welcome!).

​Participants who want to take their project further are also invited to submit a one-page story proposal to Global Rise! Several submitted projects will be selected to be workshopped in July at Part 2 of this series.

Join The City as Commons Workshop

Whether you’re a seasoned climate storyteller or ready to start your creative journey, all are welcome! This event is free to attend with advance RSVP. Attendees should bring a notebook and pen.

Alfalfa: The Future of Climate Storytelling

📆 When: Wednesday, May 27 from 6pm-9pm

📍 Where: 22 E 2nd St, New York, NY

Join us on Wednesday, 5/27 for an exclusive sneak peek and panel discussion for ALFALFA—a dynamic eco-noir thriller from award-winning director Jack Fessenden. Set against the parched backdrop of the American West, this Altman-esque tale of a desert community ravaged by water scarcity is a bold case study for entertaining, high-impact cinema. RSVP here!

CFF’s Co-Founder J. English Cook will moderate a panel discussion with actress and environmental activist Alysia Reiner (Orange is the New Black, Sideways), Sam Read (Executive Director, Sustainable Entertainment Alliance), Dr. Casey Ivanovich (NASA), and director Jack Fessenden in support of ALFALFA, a story that reframes climate as a culture fight.

☕️ CFF Takeover at Anew Café

This week, we’re taking over Anew Café & Goods in the West Village with film and climate programming! Sip on the cafe’s new signature CFF matcha, and enjoy these special screenings and events:

• Tuesday, May 26: CFF x Global Rise Workshop Series: The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice (see above for details!)

• Wednesday, May 27: Cafe Takeover Exhibition Screening & Walkthrough, 3-5pm, with filmmaker Rebecca Huang (The Human Fossil, CFF ’25) and nonprofit leader Mackenzie Feldman (Groundswell: The Re:wild Your Campus Story), hosted by CFF Co-Founder J. English Cook.

• Sunday, May 31: Screening at 3pm of the short film Hot Soda (CFF ’25) + discussion with director Nello DiGiandomenico, organized by CFF’s youth-based Next Gen Climate Film Collective.

🎬 The Unfixing: Final NYC Screening

Have you seen The Unfixing yet? Last month, we hosted two sold-out screenings of this impactful film that weaves together themes of destruction, trauma, love, and renewal. This weekend, we’re back again with your last chance to catch this film in NYC—don’t miss out on Sunday, May 31 at 5pm at New Plaza Cinema!

🤝 Partner Shoutout: This event is presented by CFF, ReelAbilities Film Festival, Climate Imaginarium, Climate Cafe NY, and Women Make Movies.

Get Tickets to The Unfixing on May 31

⚙️ Help Get a CFF ’24 Film Streaming & In Theaters!

The documentary Valve Turners (2024, dir. Steve Bonds-Liptay) had its world premiere at our inaugural festival in 2024, taking home the CFF award for Best Climate Action Film. The film follows a small group of activists from the Pacific Northwest as they turn the valves and halt the flow of five oil pipelines entering the U.S. from Canada, spotlighting the climate emergency and eliciting strong and thoughtful responses from audiences across the country.

Now, the Valve Turners team has offers from two distributors, for both digital and theatrical releases this fall/winter!

But they’re in a bit of a bind: to get the film across the finish line, they need to raise $15k for final sound mix/design, E&O insurance, QCing and fair use certification.

With the climate crisis continuing to be accelerated by those in power, these stories of resistance are needed more than ever. Please consider supporting this important project.

Support Valve Turners

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 5/26: CFF & Global Rise & Anew: The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice

• 5/27: Alfalfa: The Future of Climate Storytelling

• 5/27: NRDC & The Redford Center, Tales from our world: Inspiring climate narratives

• 6/1: Jackson Wild x Earth Alliance Impact Pitch 2026 Application Deadline

• 6/3-6/4: Hollywood Climate Summit (Use code “CFF” for 25% off tickets)

• 6/12: Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, Climate Futures + Immersive Media

• 6/30: The World Around, Young Climate Prize Application Deadline

• 7/14: World Food Forum Youth Film Festival Submission Deadline

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

• Ongoing: Unaffordable America: Photo Pitches for nbcnews.com

Final Deadline: Submit by May 22

In this Newsletter:

• 🌇 Global Rise & CFF Workshop: “The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice”

• 🌱 Sneak Peak: Alfalfa: The Future of Climate Storytelling

• 📺 Open Call: Climate Futures + Immersive Media

• ☕️ CFF Takeover at Anew Cafe & Goods

• 🎬 Final Final Deadline! Open Call Extended to Friday, May 22

• 🌿 Opportunities & Events

🌇 Join Our 3-Part Workshop Series with Global Rise! The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice

Alongside ​Global Rise: Stories for the Future and hosted by Anew, we invite you to the first of three free workshops to imagine new stories that illuminate climate justice in New York City. Whether you’re a seasoned climate storyteller or starting your creative journey, we’d love to see you there! RSVP here.

Workshop 1 of 3: The Multidimensional Challenges of Climate Justice

📆 When: Tuesday, May 26 from 5pm-8pm

📍 Where: Anew, 526 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

In our first interactive workshop, we’ll open with conversation among policy advocates, community organizers, and experts about the new climate justice narratives we need for our city. Speakers will include:

• Chris Dobens, Director of Communications, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

• Lonnie Portis, Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

• Memphis Washington, Community Outreach & Engagement AmeriCorps Member, Waterfront Alliance

Then, through guided prompts and collaborative exercises, we’ll begin mapping a creative narrative response in the medium of your choice (film, creative writing, journalism, and more all welcome!).

​Participants who want to take their project further are also invited to submit a one-page story proposal to Global Rise! Several submitted projects will be selected to be workshopped in July at Part 2 of this series.

Join The City as Commons Workshop

This workshop is free to attend! But space is limited, so register today to reserve your spot.

Alfalfa: The Future of Climate Storytelling

📆 When: Wednesday, May 27 from 6pm-9pm

📍 Where: 22 E 2nd St, New York, NY

Join us on Wednesday, 5/27 for an exclusive sneak peek and panel discussion for ALFALFA—a dynamic eco-noir thriller from award-winning director Jack Fessenden. Set against the parched backdrop of the American West, this Altman-esque tale of a desert community ravaged by water scarcity is a bold case study for entertaining, high-impact cinema. RSVP here!

​To solve the climate crisis, we must first solve the crisis of imagination. Join philanthropist and thought leader Reverend Lennox Yearwood (Producer, ALFALFA), actress and environmental activist Alysia Reiner (Orange is the New Black, Sideways), and director Jack Fessenden for a program to support ALFALFA, a story that reframes climate as a culture fight.

RSVP for Alfalfa

Agog Open Call: Climate Futures + Immersive Media

Looking for new ways to engage people in the climate fight? Check out this opportunity from our partners at Agog: The Immersive Media Institute. Agog just launched their first open call: Climate Futures + Immersive Media.

This $1 million open call offers grants of $25,000–$200,000 for innovators, technologists, artists, organizers, researchers, impact-focused organizations, studios, and creative teams with an immersive climate project. No extended reality (XR) experience required. A strong concept matters more than technical expertise.

Projects at all stages are welcome—from early concept to more developed work. Technologies of interest include smart glasses, augmented reality, spatial sound, and mixed reality. Applications close June 12.

Apply Now: Agog Open Call

☕️ CFF Takeover at Anew Café

From May 26 through May 31, CFF is taking over Anew Café & Goods in the West Village, featuring a workshop in collaboration with Global Rise, short screenings, an activation by CFF’s Next Gen Collective, and more! Treat yourself to the cafe’s new signature CFF matcha, join screenings on Wednesday, 5/27 or Sunday, 5/31 at 3pm, or browse the pop-up.

🎬 Final Final Deadline! Open Call Extended to Friday, May 22

We’re giving our late-night editors and final-cut perfectionists one last week to get their films across the finish line!

Our NEW final deadline to submit your film to CFF ’26 is this Friday, May 22!

Final Deadline: Submit by May 22

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 5/22: Climate Film Festival Final Open Call Submission Deadline - one week extension!

• 5/26: CFF & Global Rise & Anew: The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice

• 5/27: NRDC & The Redford Center, Tales from our world: Inspiring climate narratives

• 6/1: Jackson Wild x Earth Alliance Impact Pitch 2026 Application Deadline

• 6/3-6/4: Hollywood Climate Summit (Use code “CFF” for 25% off tickets)

• 6/30: The World Around, Young Climate Prize Application Deadline

• 7/14: World Food Forum Youth Film Festival Submission Deadline

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

• Ongoing: Unaffordable America: Photo Pitches for nbcnews.com

Subscribe now

And in the meantime, read on for a recap of our biggest Earth month yet!

This Earth Month, with events in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, and Paris, we pushed our programming and partnerships further than ever to widen our conversations and carry them into new rooms, new cities, and new audiences.

The best films don’t just inform, they also open up collective conversations that linger long after the credits roll, building ecosystems and shaping movements. That’s what’s at the heart of CFF.

In this Newsletter:

• 🌎 Recapping CFF’s Earth Month Lineup

  • 🚂 CFF on the Road in ATL and LA

  • 🗽 NYC Film Screenings

  • 🇫🇷 CFF at Jeu de Paume, Paris

  • 🙌 Volunteer Retreat

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

Final Deadline: Submit by May 22

🌎 Recapping CFF’s Earth Month

🚂 CFF on the Road

In early April, we brought climate storytelling on the road, to events in Atlanta and Los Angeles.

Atlanta

In Atlanta, we joined the Super South Summit, the South’s premier sustainability summit. This multi-day program included “Super Shorts: Films from the 2025 Climate Film Festival,” a curated selection of six short films, including works by Delgerzaya Delgerjargal, Eloise Jenninger, Nicholas Mihm, Michael Salama and Gastón Zilberman, Jeff Siebert, and Michael Stewart.

Los Angeles

Our next stop was Los Angeles, where we hosted our first West Coast pop-up as part of LA Climate Week, in partnership with Stranded Astronaut Productions and Earth Calling at Solotech Studios. We showcased seven shorts from CFF ’25 that exemplified the range of climate storytelling, from narrative to documentary to experimental films.

The screening was followed by a panel moderated by Heather Fipps (Hollywood Climate Summit), featuring filmmakers Greer Fawcett (Director, Clean Up Sayu), Tehya Jennett & Maxfield Biggs (Co-Directors, Dreamland), and Zazie Ray-Trapido (Director, The Instability of Clouds), with additional films by Pedro Paulo Araujo, Elham Ehsas, Eloise Jenninger, and Michael Salama and Gastón Zilberman.

🗽 NYC Film Screenings

Back home in New York, we hosted four film screenings throughout April, each followed by panel discussions that brought together filmmakers, advocates, and experts to connect on-screen stories, lived experiences, and ways to take action now.

First up was the sold-out NYC premiere of The Unfixing (2024, dir. Nicole Betancourt), a film that follows one woman’s quest for self-discovery after a surfing accident triggers inexplicable and life-altering symptoms. Multiple post-film Q&As included conversations between the director and moderators Furhana Husani (Waterfront Alliance) and Gianna Lum (Climate Cafe NYC), in partnership with Climate Imaginarium and Women Make Movies. Watch the trailer here.

Our Solar Solutions program marked our third annual event co-hosted with WE ACT for Environmental Justice. The program featured three short films focused on renewable energy solutions, followed by a panel of clean energy and environmental justice advocates: Cassidy DiPaola (Fossil Free Media), Stephan Roundtree, Jr. (Vote Solar), Jackson Hyland-Lipski (director, The Light Won’t Dim), and Caleb Smith (WE ACT).

On Earth Day itself, we headed to NYU for a screening of Oceania: Journey to the Center (2024, dir. Natalie Zimmerman), a film that begins on a coral atoll predicted to become uninhabitable by 2030 and follows a mother and her adult son as they strive to maintain their culture and independence after decades of colonizing encounters. The Q&A that followed highlighted the emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of the ecological moment we’re living through, including perspectives from: ​director Natalie Zimmerman, Jessie Keyt (Associate Arts Professor and Head of Screenwriting, Department of Dramatic Writing, NYU Tisch School of the Arts), ​and Manohar Patole (Industry Assistant Professor, NYU Tandon’s Center for Urban Science + Progress, CUSP), moderated by Abby Rabinowitz (Associate Director, STEM Writing and Clinical Professor, NYU Tandon School of Engineering). With opening remarks by Jenni Quilter (Executive Director and Assistant Vice Dean of General Education, College of Arts and Science, NYU). ​​Watch the trailer here.

We closed out the month with a screening of The Plastic Detox (2026, dir. Josh Murphy and Louie Psihoyos), a documentary that reveals the hidden dangers of plastic in our homes, exploring what microplastics are doing to our health and how we can take matters into our own hands. The post-screening conversation with climate and public health experts further explored the link between plastic pollution and climate change, featuring insights from: Jasmine McDonald (Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia School of Public Health, featured in the film), Beizhan Yan (Lamont Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University), and Alexandra Zissu (Editorial Manager, Consultant, Moms Clean Air Force), moderated by Sandra Goldmark (Professor of Professional Practice, Faculty of Climate, Columbia Climate School). Learn more about the film (now available on Netflix).

🌍 Climate Film Festival at Jeu de Paume, Paris

This month, CFF also crossed the Atlantic for our first continental pop-up, bringing climate cinema to the iconic Jeu de Paume in Paris. Over three days, we screened 18 films across 6 programs—a number of them Paris premieres—and were joined by filmmakers for Q&As and talkbacks. The climate crisis is not only political or scientific, but also cultural, and we’re excited to build new connections with aligned institutions that make the conversation more visible, public, and alive. Read the full recap.

🙌 CFF Core Team Retreat

Finally, we rounded out our 2026 Earth Month programs with a core team retreat at Anew. What began as a small team has now grown into an extraordinary crew of 35 people, and it was such a joy to gather with so many brilliant collaborators beyond the Zoom window. We spent the day brainstorming, reflecting, and dreaming up ways to make the upcoming season of CFF even more ambitious, welcoming, and impactful — and we can’t wait to share what’s ahead soon.

CFF simply would not be possible without the creativity, care, and countless volunteer hours that this community pours into the festival. We’re deeply grateful for every person helping shape what CFF continues to become.

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• 5/22: Climate Film Festival Final Open Call Submission Deadline - one week extension!

• 6/1: Jackson Wild x Earth Alliance Impact Pitch 2026 Application Deadline

• 6/3-6/4: Hollywood Climate Summit (Use code “CFF” for 25% off tickets)

• 6/30: The World Around, Young Climate Prize Application Deadline

• 7/14: World Food Forum Youth Film Festival Submission Deadline

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

• Ongoing: Unaffordable America: Photo Pitches for nbcnews.com

In this Newsletter:

• ⏰ Final Open Call Reminder: Film Submissions Due Today

• 🎥 NYC Premiere: Been Here Stay Here

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

⏰ Submit Your Film TODAY!

Last call for film submissions to CFF ’26! Today is our final deadline for entries into this year’s festival. We welcome features, shorts, and TV & Internet episodes across formats, including narrative, documentary, experimental, animation, music videos, children’s programs, and more. If it’s climate related, we want to see it!

Applications close at 11:59 PM tonight.

Submit your Film on FilmFreeway

🎥 This Weekend: NYC Premiere of Been Here Stay Here

Do you have plans this weekend? Catch the New York premiere of Been Here Stay Here (2024, dir. David Usui), playing all weekend at Quad Cinema! Been Here Stay Here follows a fishing community on a remote island in the Chesapeake Bay as they struggle to hold on to their home, raising questions about belonging, belief, and what it means to stay when the ground beneath you disappears.

Attend the Saturday evening showtime for an exclusive post-screening Q&A that CFF Co-Founders Alec Turnbull and J. English Cook are moderating, with director David Usui, Tangier Island mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge, and Mary Evelyn Tucker & John Grim, Yale Forum on Religion & Ecology.

📆 When: Saturday, May 16 at 7pm

📍 Where: Quad Cinema, 34 W 13th Street, New York, NY 10011

​🍿 What’s Playing: Been Here Stay Here film screening + filmmaker Q&A

Get Tickets for Been Here Stay Here

More about the film: Set on a remote island in the Chesapeake Bay, Been Here Stay Here brings audiences inside one of the most isolated communities in America: a conservative Christian fishing town fighting to hold on as the land beneath them disappears.

The film offers rare, unfiltered access to a place where climate and faith intersect, in a way that feels both unexpected and essential. It’s a canary-in-the-coal-mine story—an early glimpse of what thousands of coastal communities may soon face—yet it avoids political rhetoric, offering something more grounded and human. Been Here Stay Here becomes both a portrait of a disappearing island and a clear-eyed look at how belief, identity, and home are tested when the future arrives faster than expected. Watch the trailer.

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 5/15: Climate Film Festival Open Call Submission Deadline

• 5/15, 5/16, & 5/17: Been Here Stay Here (2024, dir. David Usui) screening and Q&A at Quad Cinema (NYC)

• 5/16: Climate Imaginarium, “Witness to Change” Art Exhibition Opening Party

• 5/19: Who Let the Docs Out & Hollywood Climate Summit, Chew On This: Live Doc Pitch Application Deadline

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• 5/26: Anew, Global Rise, & CFF Workshop, The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice

• 6/1: Jackson Wild x Earth Alliance Impact Pitch 2026 Application Deadline

• 6/3-6/4: Hollywood Climate Summit (Use code “CFF” for 25% off tickets)

• 6/12: Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, Climate Futures + Immersive Media Open Call Deadline

• 6/30: The World Around, Young Climate Prize Application Deadline

• 7/14: World Food Forum Youth Film Festival Submission Deadline

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

• Ongoing: Unaffordable America: Photo Pitches for nbcnews.com

The weekend brought together several standout films from CFF’s first two festivals alongside innovative new work, all in dialogue with Global Warning, the major exhibition by late photographer Martin Parr now on view at Jeu de Paume.

Across six programs, we screened 18 films and welcomed five CFF filmmakers for Q&As and conversations with audiences in Paris. Several screenings marked early previews and premieres in France, reflecting the importance of building cultural bridges that connect urgent, imaginative climate stories with the institutions and audiences that can help champion them all over the world.

Special thanks to Ecoprod for their critical work advancing sustainable film production in France and beyond, and for supporting the program as an ecosystem partner by helping connect us with like-minded filmmakers, artists, and organizations across France.

On Friday night, we welcomed back the opening film from our 2024 festival, Searching for Amani (2024, dir. Nicole Gormley, Debra Aroko), the CFF and Tribeca award-winning documentary that captures the deeply human impacts of climate change in Kenya. Co-director Nicole Gormley joined us for a post-screening conversation moderated by Agathe Duliscouet, Project Manager at ChangeNOW.

Following the screening, we hosted a reception featuring sustainable wines from Chêne Bleu, bringing together filmmakers, artists, curators, and people working across climate, culture, and cinema in Paris. Paul Picaud shared opening remarks; we’re especially grateful to Paul and the Chêne Bleu team for their generous partnership and support in helping make the evening possible. Check out their recent cameo in The Devil Wears Prada 2!

Our Saturday program began with Soft Rains, Hard Truths, a block of Narrative Shorts from CFF 2025, followed by a conversation with leaders in the French climate and film industry: Alissa Aubenque (Ecoprod, moderator), Dogan Kocer (Climate Spring), and Oriane Berthou (Nouvelle Séquence).

Following the shorts block, we then screened To Hold a Mountain (2026, dir. Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić), which just had an award-winning run at Sundance, as well as screenings at festivals like Cinéma du Réel, earlier this year. We closed out the day with a French avant-première screening of Ghost Elephants (2025, dir. Werner Herzog), followed by a Q&A moderated by Charlotte Menut Pergola, with Juan-Carlos Salazar (Jeu de Paume).

Day 3 of the program kicked off with Tectonics, a selection of Experimental Shorts from CFF 2025, followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Maxfield Biggs, Tehya Jennett, Stéphanie Lagarde, and Mélia Roger, moderated by CFF’s Executive Director Alec Turnbull. And we ended the weekend with a bang, concluding with the avant-première of the award-winning, gripping, must-see feature documentary Yanuni (2025, dir. Richard Ladkani).

As with all CFF events, this ambitious program would not have been possible without the generosity of our sponsors and supporters. Huge thanks to Jeu de Paume for their partnership and for so warmly hosting us, and a very heartfelt thank you to the incredible team there — Juan-Carlos Salazar, Lilie Grodziski, Angelin Guillot, Constance Fournage, Malika Zengli, and Tessie Ackermann, among others — for their care, collaboration, and support throughout. Huge thanks to The Carmack Collective and Anew for sustaining support, Chêne Bleu for sustainable wine, Ecoprod for ecosystem support, and Studio Rodrigo for their continued innovative design.

We’ll see you back in NYC! Stay tuned for announcements about more upcoming programs soon. And don’t forget: our open call deadline for 2026 film submissions is tomorrow, Friday, May 12!

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Can’t get enough climate film programming? Read on for details about the New York premiere of Been Here Stay Here (2024, dir. David Usui), CFF-exclusive discounts to the Hollywood Climate Summit, opportunities for emerging filmmakers, and more!

In this Newsletter:

• 🚨 Last Call! Submit to CFF ’26 by May 15

• 🎥 New York Premiere: Been Here Stay Here

• 🌟 2026 Hollywood Climate Summit: Take 25% Off Tickets

• 🌽 Submit your film to the World Food Forum Youth Film Festival

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

🚨 One Week Left: CFF’s Open Call Deadline is May 15!

The clock is ticking to submit your film to our September festival! Our final deadline is next Friday, May 15.

We’re looking for bold, imaginative, and intersectional films that explore climate, environment, and humanity across genres and formats. From documentary features to narrative shorts, animated to experimental works, we welcome all stories that expand the conversation around climate storytelling. If you’ve been thinking about submitting, now’s your chance!

Submit your Film on FilmFreeway

🎥 New York Premiere: Been Here Stay Here

Mark your calendar for another special film screening! Don’t miss the New York premiere of Been Here Stay Here (2024, dir. David Usui), followed by a filmmaker panel moderated by CFF Co-Founders Alec Turnbull and J. English Cook.

📆 When: Saturday, May 16 at 7pm

📍 Where: Quad Cinema, 34 W 13th Street, New York, NY 10011

​🍿 What’s Playing: Been Here Stay Here film screening + filmmaker Q&A

Get Tickets for Been Here Stay Here

About the film: On a remote island in the Chesapeake Bay, a deeply rooted Christian fishing community grapples with the quiet erosion of their land and their traditions. Their centuries-old way of life, sustained by faith and the rhythms of the bay, is now at a poignant crossroads—one that may force them from the only home they’ve ever known. Watch the trailer here.

🌟 Get 25% Off Tickets to the 2026 Hollywood Climate Summit

CFF is a proud community partner of the 2026 Hollywood Climate Summit, happening June 3-4 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The Ebell of Los Angeles, and online. You’re invited to attend!

The Hollywood Climate Summit is an entertainment-forward networking and learning experience with special focuses on storytelling and strategy across sectors like film, TV, gaming, advertising, and journalism. You can expect:

• Mainstage programs ft. thought leaders and creative powerhouses

• Live comedy

• Numerous networking opportunities

• Interactive workshops to incubate new ideas

• Local plant-based food experiences

Because CFF is a partner of the summit, our community gets a special 25%
discount on tickets and passes. Get tickets here, and use the code “CFF” at checkout. We hope you’ll join us!

Get Tickets: Hollywood Climate Summit

🌽 World Food Forum Youth Film Festival

Calling all young filmmakers: Submit your film to the 2026 UN FAO World Food Forum Youth Film Festival!

The WFF Youth Film Festival showcases the power of visual and narrative storytelling to address complex agrifood system challenges and promote sustainable development. This global competition invites young filmmakers (aged 18-35) to use film as a tool to explore challenges in agrifood systems, such as climate change, sustainability, and innovation, while highlighting diverse perspectives, untold stories, and elements of intangible cultural heritage.

This a great opportunity to gain international visibility, collaborate with an UN initiative, and have your work featured during WFF’s flagship event at FAO Headquarters in Rome. This festival amplifies youth voices, sparks critical dialogue, and drives meaningful change across agrifood systems and beyond. Winners will receive a $500 USD prize and be featured across WFF’s global platforms. Submissions are open via FilmFreeway until July 14, 2026!

Submit to the WFF Youth Film Festival

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 5/14: The 2026 Redford Center Grants Open Call Deadline

• 5/15: Climate Film Festival Open Call Submission Deadline

• 5/15, 5/16, & 5/17: Been Here Stay Here (2024, dir. David Usui) screening and Q&A at Quad Cinema (NYC)

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• 6/1: Jackson Wild x Earth Alliance Impact Pitch 2026 Application Deadline

• 6/3-6/4: Hollywood Climate Summit (Use code “CFF” for 25% off tickets)

• 6/30: The World Around, Young Climate Prize Application Deadline

• 7/14: World Food Forum Youth Film Festival Submission Deadline

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

• Ongoing: Unaffordable America: Photo Pitches for nbcnews.com

Also: we’re also counting down the days to our final open call deadline. Submit your film for this year’s festival while there’s still time!

In this Newsletter:

• 🍴The Plastic Detox Screening at Columbia University

• 🌎 Calling all young climate leaders: Apply to The World Around’s Young Climate Prize

• 🎬 We Are Guardians Now Streaming Worldwide

• 🎥 CFF Open Call Deadline: May 15

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

🍴 The Plastic Detox Screening at Columbia University

📆 Monday, May 4 from 5:30-7pm

📍 The Forum at Columbia University, 601 W. 125th St., New York, NY 10027

​🍿 The Plastic Detox (2026, dir. Josh Murphy and Louie Psihoyos) + Q&A

Earth Month isn’t over yet! Don’t miss this special free screening of The Plastic Detox, co-hosted by CFF, Columbia Climate School, and Moms Clean Air Force.

The Plastic Detox (2026, dir. Josh Murphy and Louie Psihoyos) is a documentary that reveals the hidden dangers of plastic in our homes, exploring what microplastics are doing to our health and how we can take matters into our own hands.

We’ll be screening a 50-minute version of the film, followed by a live Q&A to dive deep into the plastic crisis and its undeniable link to climate change. The Q&A will feature experts from Columbia Climate School, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia School of Public Health, and Moms Clean Air Force.

This screening is free to attend! RSVP to reserve your spot.

RSVP to The Plastic Detox

🌎 Apply Now to The World Around Young Climate Prize

Changing tomorrow happens with young climate leaders on the ground making impact where it is most needed. The Young Climate Prize is an accelerator that gathers, mentors, and amplifies this next generation.

This unique mentorship and academy is uniquely tailored for designers, creators, innovators, and activists under 25 years of age who are living and working on the front lines of the climate crisis. Since its launch in 2022, the program has supported 50 young people from 35 countries, working on solutions ranging from waste management and alternative fuel sources to material innovation and even birdwatching.

CFF is proud to be an Institutional Partner of this initiative. If you or someone in your network is working on a climate-focused project, we encourage you to apply! Applications are open until June 30.

Apply to the Young Climate Prize

After four years of filmmaking deep in the Brazilian Amazon — and two more building an award-winning impact campaign that has helped make real change for the Indigenous communities at the heart of the story — the We Are Guardians team is thrilled to share that Earth Day 2026 is our last big moment, and we’re going out with a splash.

For the first time, We Are Guardians is available for streaming worldwide. The film follows Indigenous forest defenders risking their lives to protect the Amazon — and all of us. Watch it, share it, and let it find the people who need to see it.

More information about where to watch: weareguardiansfilm.com

🎥 Last Call! Submit your Film to CFF by May 15

T-minus two weeks until our final open call deadline! Whether your film is a documentary or narrative, full length or short film, we want to see it. Submit your film today on FilmFreeway—or share this newsletter with your filmmaker friends!

Submit Your Film on FilmFreeway

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/4: CFF Screening & Discussion: The Plastic Detox at Columbia University

• 5/14: The 2026 Redford Center Grants Open Call Deadline

• 5/15: Climate Film Festival Open Call Submission Deadline

• 5/15, 5/16, & 5/17: Been Here Stay Here (2024, dir. David Usui) screening and Q&A at Quad Cinema (NYC)

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• 6/1: Jackson Wild x Earth Alliance Impact Pitch 2026 Application Deadline

• 6/30: The World Around, Young Climate Prize Application Deadline

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

• Ongoing: Unaffordable America: Photo Pitches for nbcnews.com

We are thrilled to be bringing highlights from our 2024 and 2025 festivals (as well as some new special selections) to an iconic museum, alongside the Jeu de Paume’s blockbuster exhibition of the late photographer Martin Parr, Global Warning.

Paris has been pushing the climate conversation forward through green urbanism and with municipal support for climate culture, and it’s now more important than ever to build strong connections across borders and languages.

18 Films. 6 Screenings. 3 days.

We’re celebrating opening night on Friday, April 24th with Searching for Amani (2024, dir. Nicole Gormley, Debra Aroko) from CFF 2024, including a conversation between Agathe Duliscouet (ChangeNOW) and the film’s director, Nicole Gormley. Followed by a reception at the Jeu de Paume and the Tuileries gardens featuring sustainable wines from Chêne Bleu.

On Saturday, we continue with Soft Rains, Hard Truths, our fiction shorts block from CFF 2025, followed by a conversation between Alissa Aubenque (Ecoprod), Dogan Kocer (Climate Spring), and Oriane Berthou (Nouvelle Séquence). In the afternoon, we’ll continue with To Hold a Mountain (2026, dir. Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić), fresh off its award-winning run at Sundance earlier this year. Finally, we’ll screen a special French avant-première screening of Ghost Elephants (2025, dir. Werner Herzog), followed by a Q&A.

Sunday beings with Tectonics, experimental shorts from CFF 2025, followed by a Q&A with filmmakers Maxfield Biggs, Tehya Jennett, Stéphanie Lagarde, and Mélia Roger, moderated by CFF’s Artistic Director Dr. J. English Cook. Finally, we wrap up with the special avant-première of Yanuni (2025, dir. Richard Ladkani).

A heartfelt thanks to the sponsors and supporters who made this possible: The Carmack Collective and Anew for sustaining support, Chêne Bleu for sustainable wine, Ecoprod for ecosystem support, and Studio Rodrigo for design.

Explore the Paris Edition

In this Newsletter:

• 🌍 Earth Week Events

  • CFF x WE ACT Earth Day Screening: Solar Solutions

  • Oceania Screening at NYU

  • CFF x Jeu de Paume, Paris

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

Tonight! CFF & WE ACT’s Annual Earth Week Film Screening

📆 Monday, April 20 at 6pm (door & refreshments) / 7pm (screening & Q&A) [waitlist only!]

📍 Maysles Documentary Center, 343 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY 10027

🍿 Solar Solutions short films

Tonight, CFF and WE ACT for Environmental Justice are co-hosting our third-annual free Earth Week screening! We’ll show three short films that focus on scaling solar energy and other clean energy solutions, followed by a panel and Q&A discussion. The three films you’ll see are:

• Green the City (2021, dir. Kika Tuff, Elana Kimbrell, Rese Cloyd, Matt Talarico, and Pete Hoffman)

• Powering a Nation with the Sun (2022, dir. Maya Lilly, Joel Bach, and Drew Magratten)

• The Light Won’t Dim (2025, dir. Jackson Hyland-Lipski)

RSVP to Solar Solutions

Oceania Screening at NYU

📆 Wednesday, April 22 at 7pm

📍 Cantor Center, NYU, 36 East 8th St.

​🍿 Oceania: Journey to the Center (2024, dir. Natalie Zimmerman) + Q&A

Don’t miss the feature documentary Oceania: Journey to the Center (2024, dir. Natalie Zimmerman), followed by a Q&A conversation highlighting the emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of our current ecological moment.

About the film: Oceania begins on a coral atoll—predicted to become uninhabitable by 2030 due to rising sea levels and temperatures brought by climate change. The film invites us on a journey with a mother and her adult son as they strive to maintain their culture, freedom, and independence after decades of colonizing encounters. ​​Watch the trailer.

RSVP to Oceania @ NYU

CFF at Jeu de Paume, Paris

📆 Friday, April 24 - Sunday, April 26

📍 Jeu de Paume, Tuileries Garden, 1 Pl. de la Concorde, 75001 Paris, France

​🍿 3-Day Climate Film Festival: Explore the program.

We’re off to Paris for a three-day Climate Film Fest at Jeu de Paume, one of France’s leading centers for contemporary image-making. Our Paris program brings together 18 films from the 2024 and 2025 festivals, along with avant premières, special screenings, and more, offering European audiences a dynamic cross-section of today’s most urgent and innovative climate storytelling.

Here’s what’s playing at Jeu de Paume—click the links to learn more and get tickets!

• Searching for Amani (2024, dir. Nicole Gormley, Debra Aroko)

• Soft Rains, Hard Truths: Narrative Shorts from CFF 2025 (selection of seven short films)

• To Hold a Mountain (2026, dir. Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić)

• Ghost Elephants (2025, dir. Werner Herzog, avant première)

• Tectonics: Experimental Shorts from CFF 2025 (selection of seven short films)

• Yanuni (2025, dir. Richard Ladkani, avant première)

Learn More & Get Tickets

The Plastic Detox Screening at Columbia University

📆 Monday, May 4 from 5:30-7pm

📍 The Forum at Columbia University, 601 W. 125th St., New York, NY 10027

​🍿 The Plastic Detox (2026, dir. Josh Murphy and Louie Psihoyos) + Q&A

Columbia Climate School, the Climate Film Festival, and Moms Clean Air Force are co-hosting an Earth Month screening of The Plastic Detox (2026, dir. Josh Murphy and Louie Psihoyos), followed by a post-screening discussion exploring the film’s themes around plastic pollution, its connections to climate change, and the broader environmental impacts of plastics. This free event will be open to the public with advance RSVP.

The 50-minute short version screening will be followed by a discussion and Q&A, moderated by Sandra Goldmark, Professor of Professional Practice in the Faculty of Climate, Columbia Climate School, and featuring Jasmine McDonald, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia School of Public Health, and Alexandra Zissu, author and journalist.

RSVP to Plastic Detox

🎥 Earth Week Discount for CFF ’26 Submissions

Ready to submit your film for our upcoming September festival? This week only, take an exclusive 10% discount on submission fees—just enter code CFFEarthWeek26 when completing your submission.

PS: We’re in the final stretch of film submissions! Our final deadline is May 15.

Submit Your Film on FilmFreeway

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 4/20: CFF & WE ACT Solar Solutions Earth Week Screening & Panel

• 4/20: Catapult Film Fund Development Grant Application Deadline

• 4/21: Films of Return: Special Climate Short Film Screening + Q&A

• 4/22: CFF Earth Day Screening: Oceania at NYU

• 4/24 - 4/26: CFF Pop-Up at Jeu de Paume, Paris

• 4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/4: CFF Screening & Discussion: The Plastic Detox at Columbia University

• 5/14: The 2026 Redford Center Grants Open Call Deadline

• 5/15: Climate Film Festival Open Call Submission Deadline

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

In this Newsletter:

• 🏙️ CFF’s Earth Week Film Screenings in NYC

• 📖 Your Next Read: Climate Wayfinding by Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson

• 🎥 CFF Open Call Final Deadline (save 10% for Earth Week!)

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

🏙️ CFF’s Earth Week Film Screenings in NYC

Based in NYC? Join one (or more) of our film screenings during Earth Week!

🎥 Film Screening: The Unfixing (2024, dir. Nicole Betancourt)

So popular we had to add a second screening! We’ll be at New Plaza Cinema for two days showing The Unfixing, a film that follows one woman’s quest for self-discovery after a surfing accident triggers inexplicable and life-altering symptoms. Guided by dreams, natures, and wisdom from others, Betancourt weaves an immersive diary of destruction, trauma, love, and renewal. Watch the trailer here.

📆 When: Saturday, April 18 at 12:15pm (sold out) AND Sunday, April 19 at 6:15pm (new showtime!)

📍 Where: New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College, 35 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023

​🍿 What’s Playing: The Unfixing, followed by a live Q&A with the director and Furhana Husani, Waterfront Alliance’s Director of Programs and Climate Initiatives (4/18) and Gianna Lum, Co-founder of Climate Cafe NYC (4/19)

🤝 Partner Shoutout: This event is presented by CFF, Climate Imaginarium, and Women Make Movies.

Get Tickets for The Unfixing

🎥 CFF x WE ACT Earth Week Film Screening: Solar Solutions (NYC)

CFF and WE ACT for Environmental Justice are co-hosting Solar Solutions, our third-annual free Earth Week screening! This selection of short films focus on scaling solar energy and other clean energy solutions that are critical to tackling climate change and energy resilience issues. Food and refreshments will be provided.

📆 When: Monday, April 20 at 6pm (door and refreshments) / 7pm (screening and Q&A)

📍 Where: Maysles Documentary Center, 343 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY 10027

​🍿 What’s Playing: The three short films below, followed by a panel and Q&A with director Jackson Hyland-Lipski and other clean energy experts.

• Green the City (2021, dir. Kika Tuff, Elana Kimbrell, Rese Cloyd, Matt Talarico, and Pete Hoffman)

• Powering a Nation with the Sun (2022, dir. Maya Lilly, Joel Bach, and Drew Magratten)

• The Light Won’t Dim (2025, dir. Jackson Hyland-Lipski)

🤝 Partner Shoutout: This event is presented by CFF and WE ACT for Environmental Justice, featuring panelists from Fossil Free Media and Vote Solar.

RSVP to Solar Solutions

🎥 Earth Day Screening: Oceania @ NYU

​Join us for a free Earth Day screening of the feature documentary Oceania: Journey to the Center (2024, dir. Natalie Zimmerman). Oceania begins on a coral atoll—predicted to become uninhabitable by 2030 due to rising sea levels and temperatures brought by climate change. The film invites us on a journey with a mother and her adult son as they strive to maintain their culture, freedom, and independence after decades of colonizing encounters. ​​Watch the trailer.

📆 When: Wednesday, April 22 at 7pm

📍 Where: Cantor Center, NYU, 36 East 8th Street

​🍿 What’s Playing: ​Oceania: Journey to the Center, followed by a Q&A conversation highlighting the emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of our current ecological moment, and their broader implications for climate communications and environmental justice.

🤝 Partner Shoutout: This event is presented in partnership with the NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress, the NYU College of Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum, Global Rise: Stories for the Future, and NYU Office of Sustainability.

RSVP to Oceania @ NYU

📖 Book Launch: Climate Wayfinding

When maps come up short and the path ahead is uncertain, how do we find our way? That’s the question at the heart of Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home, a new book by Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson, writer, teacher, creator, co-editor of All We Can Save, and friend of CFF! Dr. Wilkinson gave introductory remarks at CFF’s first-ever Narrative Change Summit this past September.

A compassionate and empowering guide, Climate Wayfinding helps us navigate from ache to action, doubt to possibility—through stirring personal essays, wisdom of other climate leaders, and the beauty of poetry, art, and song. Whether steeped in climate or newly curious, readers will find something grounding and generative in these pages and the proven process they share. It’s a book to read, as well as one you can “do.”

Order a copy, learn about reading groups, and find book tour events at www.climatewayfinding.earth. Until May 5, Bookshop.org is offering 15% off + a limited edition art print (promo code: Climate 15).

Order Climate Wayfinding on Bookshop.org

🎥 Earth Week Discount for CFF ’26 Submissions

Time is running out to submit a film to CFF ’26! We’re looking for bold storytelling across multiple genres and formats that helps move the climate conversation. Our final deadline is May 15.

PS: Since it’s Earth Week, we’re providing a special discount code until April 25th! Enter code CFFEarthWeek26 when completing your submission to unlock 10% off.

Submit Your Film on FilmFreeway

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 4/16: CFF Pop-Up Screening at LA Climate Week

• 4/16: Rhizome Fellowship: Pathways for Regenerative Futures Application Deadline

• 4/16: May 14: Human Impacts Institute Exhibition: 2026 Creative Climate Awards, Collective Power

• 4/17: Catapult Film Fund & True/False Film Fest: Rough Cut Retreat Application Deadline

• 4/18: Co-Creation Studio and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, 2026 WORLDING INCUBATOR on Climate Futures

• 4/18: Rockaway Film Festival Earth Day Celebration: Trash Pickup at Dubos Point Wildlife Sanctuary and Free Screenings at Arverne Cinema

• 4/18: CFF Screening of The Unfixing & Panel Discussion (sold out)

• 4/19: CFF Screening of The Unfixing & Panel Discussion (second screening—tickets available!)

• 4/20: CFF & WE ACT Solar Solutions Earth Week Screening & Panel

• 4/20: Catapult Film Fund Development Grant Application Deadline

• 4/21: Films of Return: Special Climate Short Film Screening + Q&A

• 4/22: CFF Earth Day Screening: Oceania at NYU

• 4/24 - 4/26: CFF Pop-Up at Jeu de Paume, Paris

• 4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/14: The 2026 Redford Center Grants Open Call Deadline

• 5/15: Climate Film Festival Open Call Submission Deadline

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

Read on to explore the full lineup and get tickets.

In this Newsletter:

• 🎟 Get Tickets to CFF @ Jeu de Paume

• 🎬 CFF @ Jeu de Paume Film Program

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

🎬 CFF @ Jeu de Paume

Will you be in Paris from April 24 to April 26? We’d love to see you for one, two, or all three days of our mini-fest!

📆 When: Friday, April 24 through Sunday, April 26

📍 Where: Jeu de Paume, Tuileries Garden, 1 Pl. de la Concorde, 75001 Paris, France

Explore the Program

Jeu de Paume Opening Night: Friday, April 24

Searching for Amani (2024, dir. Nicole Gormley, Debra Aroko)

📆 19:30

🎟 Get tickets here

In Searching for Amani, a young aspiring journalist investigates his father’s mysterious murder within the boundaries of one of Kenya’s largest wildlife conservancies. As a ravaging drought encroaches, his quest to find the killer shifts as the collateral damage of a warming world is revealed. Winner of CFF’s 2024 Best Documentary Award.

After the film, attendees of the opening night film screening will be welcome to join a reception for guests, filmmakers, and partners!

Language: In Swahili and English, with French subtitles.

Tickets: Searching for Amani

Jeu de Paume Program: Saturday, April 25

Soft Rains, Hard Truths: Narrative Shorts from CFF 2025

📆 11:30

🎟 Get tickets here

Mythical creatures, mushroom trips, alien archaeologists, and mutating children—this collection of short narrative films bends time, genre, and logic to explore the wild edges of climate collapse. Darkly funny and deeply felt, these stories imagine the legacies we pass down—of culture, resistance, and survival—when nature starts talking back. This block will feature the following films:

• “Everything is Fine” (2024, dir. Areeya Jitaree)

• “HOT SODA” (2023, dir. Nello DiGiandomenico)

• “There Will Come Soft Rains” (2025, dir. Elham Ehsas)

• “Kuhaan” (2025, dir. Vinati Makijany)

• “Kataw” (2024, dir. Alyssa Ashley Manugas)

• “The Human Fossil” (2024, dir. Rebecca Huang)

• “The Persistence of Memory” (2025, dir. Genevieve Hannelius, Zulema Young-Toledo)

Languages: Original versions, in English or with English subtitles.

Tickets: Narrative Shorts

To Hold a Mountain (2026, dir. Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić)

📆 14:30

🎟 Get tickets here

In To Hold a Mountain, set in the pristine mountains of Montenegro, a mother and daughter defend their herding tradition and land from becoming a NATO military training ground while facing ongoing violence against women and nature in the region.

Language: In Montenegrin, with French subtitles.

Tickets: To Hold a Mountain

Ghost Elephants (2025, dir. Werner Herzog, avant première)

📆 19:30

🎟 Get tickets here

Announcing the French avant première of the newest project from acclaimed director Werner Herzog! For over a decade, Dr. Steve Boyes, conservation biologist and National Geographic Explorer, has been in search of a mysterious, elusive herd of Ghost Elephants in the highlands of Angola, deep within its forests. Herzog’s Ghost Elephants follows Boyes on an epic journey as he sets out with some of the best master trackers in the world, in pursuit of an animal long believed to be a myth.

Language: In English, with French subtitles.

Tickets: Ghost Elephants

Jeu de Paume Program: Sunday, April 26

Tectonics: Experimental Shorts from CFF 2025

📆 11:30

🎟 Get tickets here

Through temporal imagery and fragmented narratives, the first edition of CFF’s Tectonics program offers meditations on the intangible undercurrents of the Anthropocene. These experimental works foreground subjectivity, non-human perspectives, fictional possibilities, and rhythmic structures that expand conversations about climate into broader socio-political terrains. The program includes:

• “Dear Phonocene” (2024, dir. Mélia Roger)

• “Common Pear” (2025, dir. Gregor Božič)

• “Alheio” (2024, dir. Pedro Paulo Araujo)

• “O Jardim em Movimento” (2024, dir. Inês Lima)

• “The Instability of Clouds” (2024, dir. Zazie Ray-Trapido)

• “Dreamland” (2024, dir. Tehya Jennett, Maxfield Biggs)

• “Extra Life (and Decay)” (2025, dir. Stéphanie Lagarde)

Languages: Original versions, in English or with English subtitles.

Tickets: Experimental Shorts

Yanuni (2025, dir. Richard Ladkani, avant première)

📆 15:00

🎟 Get tickets here

YANUNI (avant première) follows the extraordinary journey of Juma Xipaia, an Indigenous chief from the Brazilian Amazon, as she rises from a remote village in Xipaya territory to the political frontlines of climate justice. Spanning years of activism and personal sacrifice, the film captures Juma’s historic appointment as Brazil’s first Secretary of Indigenous Rights under President Lula. Told with intimate access and cinematic urgency, YANUNI is both a love story and a call to action. It illuminates one of the world’s most critical environmental and human rights struggles through a deeply personal lens. At once epic and intimate, YANUNI is a powerful portrait of resilience, Indigenous sovereignty, and the fight to protect the world’s largest rainforest—for future generations and the planet we call home.

Language: In Portuguese and English, with French subtitles.

Tickets: Yanuni

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 4/13: Sundance Institute Documentary Fund & Sandbox Films: Sandbox Fund

• 4/13: Berkeley Film Foundation, 2026 Documentary Grant Program

• 4/14: Woodman Family Foundation, Housing Stability Grant for Artists

• 4/14: Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Climate Comedy Show, Hosted by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

• 4/15: Science New Wave Fund III

• 4/15: South Street Seaport Museum, The Keeper Film Screening

• 4/16: CFF Pop-Up Screening at LA Climate Week

• 4/16: Rhizome Fellowship: Pathways for Regenerative Futures Application Deadline

• 4/16: May 14: Human Impacts Institute Exhibition: 2026 Creative Climate Awards, Collective Power

• 4/17: Catapult Film Fund & True/False Film Fest: Rough Cut Retreat Application Deadline

• 4/18: Co-Creation Studio and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, 2026 WORLDING INCUBATOR on Climate Futures

• 4/18: Rockaway Film Festival Earth Day Celebration: Trash Pickup at Dubos Point Wildlife Sanctuary and Free Screenings at Arverne Cinema

• 4/18: CFF Screening of The Unfixing & Panel Discussion (sold out)

• 4/19: CFF Screening of The Unfixing & Panel Discussion (second screening—tickets available!)

• 4/20: CFF & WE ACT Solar Solutions Earth Week Screening & Panel

• 4/20: Catapult Film Fund Development Grant Application Deadline

• 4/21: Films of Return: Special Climate Short Film Screening + Q&A

• 4/22: CFF Earth Day Screening: Oceania at NYU

• 4/24 - 4/26: CFF Pop-Up at Jeu de Paume, Paris

• 4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/14: The 2026 Redford Center Grants Open Call Deadline

• 5/15: Climate Film Festival Open Call Submission Deadline

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Ongoing: Pulitzer Center Work/Environment Reporting Grants

In this Newsletter:

• ⭐️ Get Tickets for CFF’s Free Pop-Up at LA Climate Week

• 🚢 The Keeper Film Screening & Panel Discussion

• 🌍 Get Tickets for CFF’s Earth Week Film Screenings in New York & Paris

• 🎥 Final Open Call Deadline for CFF ’26 is May 15

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

⭐️ See You at LA Climate Week!

Calling all Angelenos! Have you snagged your tickets for CFF’s free pop-up event at LA Climate Week? We’re screening seven short films from CFF ’25. These films showcase a vast array of climate storytelling, and will be followed by a filmmaker panel discussing the importance of art and culture in changemaking.

📆 When: Thursday, April 16 from 6:30-9:30pm PDT

📍 Where: Solotech Los Angeles, 6700 Santa Monica Blvd Entrance at 1017 N Las Palmas Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038

​🍿 What’s Playing: Our (free!) screening block includes:

• ​There Will Come Soft Rains (2025, dir. Elham Ehsas)

• ​​The Instability of Clouds (2024, dir. Zazie Ray-Trapido)

• ​Dreamland (2024, dir. Tehya Jennett, Maxfield Biggs)

• ​Alheio (2024, dir. Pedro Paulo Araujo)

• ​Qotzuñi (2024, dir. Gastón Zilberman, Michael Salama)

• Sayu-Limpia (2025, dir. Greer Fawcett)

• ​The Last Garden (2024, dir. Eloise Jenninger)

🎙️ Panel Discussion: The screening will be followed by a filmmaker Q&A featuring some of the films’ directors—Greer Fawcett, Tehya Jennett & Maxfield Biggs, and Zazie Ray-Trapido—and moderated by Heather Fipps, Executive Director of the Hollywood Climate Summit.

🤝 Partner Shoutout: This program is organized as part of LA Climate Week, in collaboration with Stranded Astronaut Productions and Earth Calling.

Get Tickets to CFF @ LA Climate Week

🚢 The Keeper Film Screening at South Street Seaport Museum

Don’t miss a special free screening of the documentary The Keeper (2025, dir. Jon Bowermaster), presented by CFF’s partners at the South Street Seaport Museum and featuring a film by past CFF ’24 filmmaker!

📆 When: Wednesday, April 15 at 6pm

📍 Where: Tall Ship Wavertree at the South Street Seaport Museum, 89 South St, New York, NY 10038

​🍿 What’s Playing: The Keeper film screening + filmmaker Q&A

Get Tickets for The Keeper

About the film: The Keeper explores the life and legacy of John Lipscomb, who spent 25 years patrolling and protecting the Hudson River—taking on industrial and human pollution, weathering setbacks, and celebrating hard-won victories. It’s a story of resilience, activism, and the enduring fight to protect our waterways. And a must-watch this Earth Month. Watch the trailer here.

🌍 Earth Month Events from CFF

Based in NYC or Paris? Join one (or more) of our film screenings during Earth Week! Here’s an at-a-glance look at what’s coming up:

🎥 The Unfixing (2024, dir. Nicole Betancourt): Film Screening + Director Q&A

• When & Where: Saturday, April 18 at 12:15pm (sold out) AND Sunday, April 19 at 6:15pm (new showtime!) at New Plaza Cinema.

• What’s Playing: The Unfixing follows one woman’s quest for self-discovery after a surfing accident triggers inexplicable and life-altering symptoms. She weaves an immersive diary of destruction, trauma, love, and renewal as her journey transforms grief into a new story. Watch the trailer here. The screening on 4/18 will be followed by a live Q&A with the director and Furhana Husani, Director of Programs and Climate Initiatives, Waterfront Alliance.

• Partner Shoutout: This event is presented by CFF, Climate Imaginarium, and Women Make Movies.

  Get Tickets for The Unfixing

🌞 CFF x WE ACT Earth Week Free Film Screening: Solar Solutions

• When & Where: Monday, April 20 at 6pm at Maysles Documentary Center.

• What’s Playing: A selection of short films, including The Light Won’t Dim (2025, dir. Jackson Hyland-Lipski), Green the City (2021, dir. Kika Tuff, Elana Kimbrell, Rese Cloyd, Matt Talarico, and Pete Hoffman), and other films focused on solar and clean energy solutions. The screenings will be followed by a panel and Q&A with director Hyland-Lipski and other experts advancing clean energy solutions in New York and nationally.

• Partner Shoutout: This is our third annual free Earth Week screening with WE ACT for Environmental Justice!

Get Tickets for Solar Solutions

🍿 Free Earth Day Film Screening: Oceania

• When & Where: Wednesday, April 22 at 7pm at NYU’s Cantor Film Center.

• What’s Playing: Oceania: Journey to the Center, a feature documentary centered on the island nation of Kiribati, which is predicted to be uninhabitable by 2030 due to rising sea levels brought by climate change. The film invites us to recenter our relationship to climate science data and facts, feeling the emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of the ecological crisis. The screening will be followed by a Q&A conversation with the film’s director and three NYU faculty members. Watch the trailer here.

• Partner Shoutout: This event is presented in partnership with the NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress, the NYU College of Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum, Global Rise: Stories for the Future, and NYU Office of Sustainability.

Get Tickets for Oceania @ NYU

🌍 CFF x Jeu de Paume (Paris)

• When & Where: Friday, April 24 through Sunday, April 26 at the Jeu de Paume center for contemporary arts and media in Paris, France.

• What’s Playing: A mini-CFF! We’ll be screening 17 films, including selections from our 2024 and 2025 festivals and several special screenings.

• More details, including a link to buy tickets, coming soon!

🎥 Open Call Deadline for CFF ’26: May 15

Throw your hat in the ring for CFF ’26! Submit your film for consideration for our festival. Our extended deadline is May 15.

Submit your Film on FilmFreeway

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 4/13: Berkeley Film Foundation, 2026 Documentary Grant Program

• 4/14: Woodman Family Foundation, Housing Stability Grant for Artists

• 4/14: Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Climate Comedy Show

• 4/15: Science New Wave Fund III

• 4/15: South Street Seaport Museum, The Keeper Film Screening

• 4/16: CFF Pop-Up Screening at LA Climate Week

• 4/18: Co-Creation Studio and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, 2026 WORLDING INCUBATOR on Climate Futures

• 4/18: Rockaway Film Festival Earth Day Celebration: Trash Pickup at Dubos Point Wildlife Sanctuary and Free Screenings at Arverne Cinema

• 4/18: CFF Screening of The Unfixing & Panel Discussion (sold out)

• 4/19: CFF Screening of The Unfixing & Panel Discussion (second screening—tickets available!)

• 4/20: CFF & WE ACT Solar Solutions Earth Week Screening & Panel

• 4/22: CFF Earth Day Screening: Oceania at NYU

• 4/24 - 4/26: CFF Pop-Up at Jeu de Paume, Paris

• 4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/15: Climate Film Festival Open Call Submission Deadline

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

In this Newsletter:

• 🎟️ Get Free Tickets for CFF’s LA Climate Week Pop-Up

• 🎬 Event Recap: Film Screening at Super South Summit in Atlanta

• 🏆 Call for Entry: Hollywood Climate Summit Awards

• 🎥 CFF Final Open Call Deadline: May 15

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

🎟️ CFF Goes Hollywood: Pop-Up at LA Climate Week

Are you in Los Angeles? We want to see you at our very first Los Angeles pop-up event!

Organized as part of LA Climate Week in partnership with Stranded Astronaut Productions and Earth Calling, we’ll be hosting a free screening of a selection of short films from CFF ’25 that demonstrate the range of what climate storytelling can look like—from narrative to documentary to experimental filmmaking. The screening will be followed by a filmmaker panel discussing the importance of art and culture in creating change.

📆 When: Thursday, April 16 from 6:30-9:30pm PDT

📍 Where: Solotech Los Angeles, 6700 Santa Monica Blvd Entrance at 1017 N Las Palmas Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038

​🍿 What’s Playing: Our (free!) screening block includes these films:

• ​There Will Come Soft Rains (2025, dir. Elham Ehsas)

• ​Sayu-Limpia (2025, dir. Greer Fawcett)

• ​The Instability of Clouds (2024, dir. Zazie Ray-Trapido)

• ​Alheio (2024, dir. Pedro Paulo Araujo)

• ​Dreamland (2024, dir. Tehya Jennett, Maxfield Biggs)

• ​Qotzuñi (2024, dir. Gastón Zilberman, Michael Salama)

• ​The Last Garden (2024, dir. Eloise Jenninger)

🎙️ Panel Discussion: After the films, stay for a filmmaker Q&A featuring some of the directors of the screened films: Greer Fawcett, Tehya Jennett & Maxfield Biggs, and Zazie Ray-Trapido. Moderated by Heather Fipps, Executive Director, Hollywood Climate Summit.

Get Tickets Now!

🎬 CFF Shorts at Super South Summit

Earlier this week, CFF popped up in Atlanta for Super South: Summit for Sustainable Innovation and Impact! We screened a selection of short films from our 2025 festival in a program called “Super Shorts: Films from the 2025 Climate Film Festival.”

Learn More About Super South

🎬 Super Shorts: Films from the 2025 Climate Film Festival featured the following films:

• The Last Garden (2024, dir. Eloise Jenninger)

• Portrait of a Seaweed Farmer (2025, dir. Jeff Siebert)

• Kelp Currency (2025, dir. Michael Stewart)

• How to Change the World | SAGE (2025, dir. Nicholas Mihm)

• Qotzuñi: People of the Lake (2024, dir. Gastón Zilberman, Michael Salama)

• Herders at the Edge (2024, dir. Delgerzaya Delgerjargal)

🏆 Hollywood Climate Summit Awards

We’re proud to amplify the new Hollywood Climate Summit Awards, which just launched in partnership with Jackson Wild! Submissions are now open.

The awards recognize climate and nature storytelling across narrative film, scripted and unscripted television, video games, comedy specials, podcasts, digital series, branded content, and impact campaigns.

A distinguished judging committee evaluates work using the HCS Climate Context Framework: climate or nature should be meaningfully woven into the work. It doesn’t need to be the central subject.

Winners will be recognized at a joint awards ceremony in Los Angeles this November alongside the Jackson Wild Media Award recipients.

Submit Your Project

Regular Deadline: June 22, 2026. Projects completed after June 1, 2024 are eligible. Full category details and submission can be found here.

🎥 Extended Open Call Deadline for CFF ’26: May 15

Are you still considering submitting your film to CFF? Are there people in your network with films to submit? You still have time! But the clock is ticking… May 15 is our final deadline.

Submit Your Film Today

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 4/6: Changing Climate Changing Lives Film Festival, Film Grants

• 4/7: New York Foundation for the Arts Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants

• 4/13: Berkeley Film Foundation, 2026 Documentary Grant Program

• 4/14: Woodman Family Foundation, Housing Stability Grant for Artists

• 4/15: Science New Wave Fund III

• 4/16: CFF Pop-Up Screening at LA Climate Week

• 4/18: CFF Screening of The Unfixing & Panel Discussion (sold out)

• 4/18: Co-Creation Studio and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, 2026 WORLDING INCUBATOR on Climate Futures

• 4/20: CFF & WE ACT Solar Solutions Earth Week Screening & Panel

• 4/22: CFF Earth Day Screening: Oceania at NYU

• 4/24 - 4/26: CFF Pop-Up at Jeu de Paume, Paris

• 4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

April is Earth Month, and we’re bringing Climate Film Festival programming to audiences across the U.S. and around the world! Read on to explore where you can join us for upcoming screenings, panels, and events.

And don’t forget, we’re still accepting extended deadline submissions for the main September Festival!

In this Newsletter: Earth Month Preview

• 🎬 March 30 - April 1: Super South Summit (Atlanta)

• 🎟️ April 16: LA Climate Week Pop-Up Screening (Los Angeles)

• 🎥 April 18: The Unfixing Screening & Panel (NYC)

• 🌞 April 20: Solar Solutions Screening & Panel w/ WE ACT for Environmental Justice (NYC)

• 🍿 April 22: Earth Day Film Screening & Panel: Oceania @ NYU (NYC)

• 🌍 April 24 - April 26: Mini Climate Film Festival at Jeu de Paume (Paris)

🎬 Super South: Summit for Sustainable Innovation and Impact (Atlanta)

Tuesday, March 31 at 2pm and Wednesday, April 1 at 1:15pm

We’re kicking off Earth Month in Atlanta, GA at the Super South Summit, the South’s premier summit for sustainability. CFF will be screening a selection of short films in our program, “Super Shorts: Films from the 2025 Climate Film Festival.”

Learn More about Super South

🎟️ LA Climate Week Pop-Up (Los Angeles)

Thursday, April 16

Next up, CFF is heading to the West Coast for its first-ever Los Angeles pop-up, organized as part of LA Climate Week! We’ll be screening a free special block of short films from CFF ’25 that exemplify the breadth of climate storytelling, followed by a filmmaker panel discussing the importance of art and culture in creating change. This event, hosted at Solotech Studios, is curated and produced in collaboration with our partners at Stranded Astronaut Productions. Learn more about the films included in the screening block and get your tickets today!

Get Tickets for CFF @ LA Climate Week

🎥 Film Screening: The Unfixing (NYC)

Saturday, April 18 at 12:15pm

We’ll be back in New York for several Earth Week film screenings, starting with a special showing of The Unfixing (2024, dir. Nicole Betancourt) at New Plaza Cinema! Presented by CFF, Climate Imaginarium, and Women Make Movies, the film will be followed by a live Q&A with the director and Furhana Husani, Waterfront Alliance’s Director of Programs and Climate Initiatives. This event is already sold out (wow!) but you can learn more about the film here.

The Unfixing: Watch the Trailer

🌞 CFF x WE ACT Earth Week Film Screening: Solar Solutions (NYC)

Monday, April 20 at 6pm

We’re teaming up with WE ACT for Environmental Justice for our third annual free Earth Week screening at the Maysles Documentary Center! Enjoy refreshments and mingle with other climate storytellers, then enjoy a shorts block screening of The Light Won’t Dim (2025, dir. Jackson Hyland-Lipski) and other films focused on scaling the solar and clean energy solutions that are critical to tackling climate change and energy resilience issues. The screenings will be followed by a panel and Q&A with director Hyland-Lipski and other experts advancing clean energy solutions in New York and nationally.

Get Tickets for Solar Solutions

🍿 Earth Day Film Screening: Oceania (NYC)

Wednesday, April 22 at 7pm

Celebrate Earth Day with a screening of the feature documentary Oceania: Journey to the Center (2024, dir. Natalie Zimmerman) at NYU’s Cantor Film Center. The screening will be followed by a Q&A conversation with the film’s director and three NYU faculty members, highlighting the emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of our current ecological moment. Watch the trailer, then grab your tickets—tickets are free with RSVP!

This event is presented by CFF in partnership with the NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress, the NYU College of Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum, Global Rise: Stories for the Future, and NYU Office of Sustainability.

Get Tickets for Oceania @ NYU

🌍 CFF x Jeu de Paume (Paris)

Friday, April 24 - Sunday, April 26

Nous allons à Paris! CFF is going global with a three-day festival pop-up at the iconic Jeu de Paume center for contemporary arts and media in Paris, France. This mini-Climate Film Festival will feature 17 films, including festival selects from 2024 and 2025 and several special screenings. Will you be in Paris? Let us know!

We can’t wait to gather with you and celebrate the power of climate storytelling. Which city will we see you in this Earth Month?

In this Newsletter:

• 🎥 Film Submission Open Call Deadline: Friday, March 27

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

🎥 Open Call Regular Deadline: March 27

This week is your last chance to submit a film to CFF ’26 by our regular deadline! While we’re accepting submissions through May 15, submit by this Friday, March 27 to avoid additional fees. Our team is already hard at work reviewing films, and we’re excited to watch yours! Submit today on FilmFreeway.

• 🍿 March 27: Regular Deadline

• 🎥 May 15: Extended Deadline (an additional $15 will apply to all submission fees)

Submit Your Film Today!

For more info on the festival, our submission categories, and more, check out FilmFreeway and our Open Call FAQ.

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 3/27-3/28: Environmental Film Festival at Yale

• 4/2: Creative Capital for Artists, 2027 Creative Capital Open Call for the Creative Capital Award + State of the Art Prize

• 4/6: Changing Climate Changing Lives Film Festival, Film Grants

• 4/7: New York Foundation for the Arts Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants

• 4/13: Berkeley Film Foundation, 2026 Documentary Grant Program

• 4/14: Woodman Family Foundation, Housing Stability Grant for Artists

• 4/15: Science New Wave Fund III

• 4/18: Co-Creation Studio and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, 2026 WORLDING INCUBATOR on Climate Futures

• 4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

We have two great partner events to highlight in this newsletter, and a whole set of upcoming opportunities and events for climate filmmakers below.

In this Newsletter:

• 🎥 Film Submission Open Call Deadline: March 27

• 🌍 Apply to the WORLDING 2026 Incubator

• 🎬 ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York: April 23-30

• 👏 Celebrating CFF’s Volunteer Team

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

  ---

🎥 Open Call Deadline: March 27

Have you been thinking about submitting a film to CFF ’26? Now’s your chance—our regular deadline is coming up! While we’re accepting film submissions through May 15, our regular deadline is Friday, March 27. Submit today on FilmFreeway.

• 🍿 March 27: Regular Deadline

• 🎥 May 15: Extended Deadline (an additional $15 will apply to all submission fees)

Submit Your Film Today!

For more info on the festival, our submission categories, and more, check out our FilmFreeway and our Open Call FAQ. We can’t wait to see your film!

🌍 WORLDING 2026 is here! Open Call for Applications!

Our friends at Co-Creation Studio (MIT ODL) in collaboration with Agog: The Immersive Media Institute are excited to announce the return of WORLDING, an initiative to advance thought and practice at the intersection of storytelling, climate change planning, XR, visualization and land use place-based decision-making. The initiative, now in its fifth iteration, is accepting applications from teams to participate in the one-week virtual research and development workshop in the spring.

Apply Now! WORLDING is inviting teams with projects envisioning climate futures to apply for the 2026 WORLDING incubator, which will take place online from May 13-27, 2026. Interdisciplinary teams applying would ideally include 3 members, with at least one storyteller and one place-maker. Applications are open until March 18, 2026 (11:59pm ET).

Apply to WORLDING 2026

🎬 ReelAbilities Film Festival

Save the Date for the 18th Annual ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York, which returns from April 23-30!

ReelAbilities is the world’s leading film festival dedicated to advancing disability representation, accessibility, and inclusion through the power of storytelling. Renowned for its wide-ranging, award-winning international films, the festival showcases work by and about people with disabilities, positioning disability culture at the center of the contemporary arts landscape.

📍ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York

🗓️ April 23-30, 2026

🎬 Groundbreaking films that challenge stereotypes, expand perspectives, and highlight authentic lived experiences.

💬 Riveting conversations with filmmakers, artists, protagonists, & subject-matter experts that foster dialogue around disability justice, equity, creativity, and social impact.

🏙️ Events across NYC + online

ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York is more than a festival—it is a movement for inclusion, creativity, and community.

Learn More about RFF '26

👏 Celebrating CFF’s Volunteer Team

Last week, our team came together to celebrate the extraordinary volunteers who powered the first years of the Climate Film Festival. Our team is primarily volunteer-driven, and it’s thanks to this crew that CFF has grown from an idea into a vibrant community for climate cinema.

We met up at Anew, a gathering space and discovery center for the social impact community located in the West Village. CFF is proud to be participating in the spring 2026 cohort entrepreneurs-in-residence at Anew!

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• 3/22: We Are Moving the Needle, Spring MicroGrants

• 3/23: TRIGGER — FOMU, Museum of Photography Antwerp Open Call: OCEAN OTHERWISE

• 3/23: Carnegie Science SOCIAL: Mission Matchmaker

• 3/27-3/28: Environmental Film Festival at Yale

• 4/2: Creative Capital for Artists, 2027 Creative Capital Open Call for the Creative Capital Award + State of the Art Prize

• 4/6: Changing Climate Changing Lives Film Festival, Film Grants

• 4/7: New York Foundation for the Arts Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants

• 4/13: Berkeley Film Foundation, 2026 Documentary Grant Program

• 4/14: Woodman Family Foundation, Housing Stability Grant for Artists

• 4/15: Science New Wave Fund III

• 4/18: Co-Creation Studio and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, 2026 WORLDING INCUBATOR on Climate Futures

• 4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack

• 4/29: Chicken & Egg Films, 2027 (Egg)celerator Lab

• 5/20: Center for Craft, Craft Archive Fellowship

• Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera

• Become a festival ambassador with the Next Gen Climate Film Collective.

• If you’re a filmmaker, there’s still time to submit your film by our early-bird deadline!

Don’t miss these opportunities (and their fast-approaching deadlines)—read more below.

In this Newsletter:

• 🎓 Next Gen Climate Film Collective Applications are Open

• 🐦 Early Bird Film Submission Deadline is TODAY!

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

🎓 Join CFF’s Next Gen Climate Film Collective

Are you between 18 and 26 and passionate about climate change, storytelling, film, and the arts? Join a dynamic ambassador cohort with our Next Gen Climate Film Collective! Apply here by 5pm on Friday, February 27.

We’re looking for NYC’s next generation of climate ambassadors and storytellers. With the support of the CFF team, the Collective will engage with different aspects of organizing an impact-driven film festival, including:

• Voting for a Youth Choice Award at the September 2026 Festival

• Writing guest posts for the CFF newsletter

• Curating a Climate Film Club screening

• Meeting like-minded, dedicated peers in pursuit of climate action

• Providing critical assistance and perspectives on the climate crisis from the point of view of NYC-based youth

Next Gen Climate Film Collective members will be selected from across the five boroughs and beyond. The group will meet on a regular basis in Spring 2026, with an option to extend during the Summer and Fall seasons. Participants will have the opportunity to both attend in-person screenings and workshops throughout the year and to provide hands-on volunteer help at the annual Festival in September. Click here to learn more and apply by February 27.

Apply to the Next Gen Collective!

📣 Last Chance! Early Bird Film Submissions Due February 19

Last call for early bird film submissions! If you (or a filmmaker friend!) have a film to submit the festival, you have until the end of the day today to enjoy our early-bird discounts.

Submit your Film on FilmFreeway

Film submissions are open until May 15, but our early bird deadline offers reduced rates for filmmakers:

• 📺 Shorts & Episodics: $30 $15 until Feb. 19

• ⭐️ Features: $40 $25 until Feb. 19

• 👨‍🎓 Young Filmmakers: $15 $10 until Feb. 19

Questions about our Open Call process? Check out our FAQ.

🌱 Opportunities & Events

• Ongoing: Hiring, Communications Manager, Spherical

• 2/20: USC Annenberg Innovation Lab Civic Media Fellowship

• 2/25: Submissions due for Submerse NY: Public Art to Promote Flood Resilience in Jamaica Bay

• 3/1: Suggestions due for NYC’s first-ever Environmental Justice Place

• 3/8: Call for Proposals: “The Protectors” A Documentary Series by Scientific American

• 3/8: Jamma Conservation & Communities Human-Centred Conservation Storytelling Grant

• 3/23: TRIGGER — FOMU, Museum of Photography Antwerp Open Call: OCEAN OTHERWISE

• 4/7: New York Foundation for the Arts Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants
  

To celebrate, we’re hosting a happy hour at OCabanon for filmmakers, friends, and climate pros next Tuesday, February 17 along with Climate Tech Cities. Interested in getting involved or submitting a film? Swing by, meet the team, and make new friends! RSVP here.

💃 Open Call Party w/ NY Climate Tech

We’re celebrating the kickoff of our open call for film submissions with a launch party! Join us and Climate Tech Cities next Tuesday, February 17 from 6-8pm at OCabanon in Chelsea to connect with our team, filmmakers, climate professionals, and new friends about climate cinema and storytelling. Cash bar.

🗓️ Tuesday, February 17

⏱️ 6:00-8:00pm

📍 OCabanon, 245 W 29th St (between 7th and 8th Avenues), New York, NY 10001

RSVP Here!

🙋‍♀️ Volunteer to Screen Film Submissions

Calling all filmmakers, environmentalists, and NY film enthusiasts! Want to watch amazing climate films and help shape the festival lineup? We’re still accepting volunteers to screen the films submitted to the festival! Apply here by February 18.

What You’ll Do:

• 🍿 Watch movies before anyone else. Every movie submitted to the fest is watched and evaluated by multiple screeners.

• 📝 Evaluate films using a rubric provided by CFF. Films are evaluated with a shared rubric and guide. After the initial screening period, top-rated films go to our senior programming team, who make the final selections for the 2026 festival.

• 🦸 Be an essential part of the Climate Film Fest! Your efforts are crucial in helping shape our final program!

Apply to be a CFF Screener

🐦 Early Bird Submissions Due February 19

Thinking about submitting your film to CFF ’26? Our open call is happening now! We’re looking for bold and boundary-pushing works, from narrative and documentary features to experimental shorts and music videos. If it’s climate related, we want to see it.

Submissions are open until May 15, but the early bird deadline is right around the corner: Thursday, February 19.

Submit your film on FilmFreeway!

Submit by our early bird deadline to enjoy reduced rates for filmmakers:

• 📺 Shorts & Episodics: $30 $15 until Feb. 19

• ⭐️ Features: $40 $25 until Feb. 19

• 👨‍🎓 Young Filmmakers: $15 $10 until Feb. 19

Questions about our Open Call process? Check out our FAQ!

Why do we charge? CFF is a nonprofit organization, and submission fees directly support the festival. We strive to keep the fees affordable, and we do offer a limited number of submission fee waivers to anyone for whom the entry fee presents a barrier to submission.

Share

Subscribe now

And don’t forget: if you have a film (or a filmmaker friend), you can submit on FilmFreeway by Feb. 19th for an early-bird submission discount.

In this newsletter:

• 🙋‍♀️ Volunteer as a CFF Screener

• 🐦 Early Bird Film Submission Deadline

• 🌱 Opportunities & Events

🙋‍♀️ Volunteer to Screen Film Submissions

Calling all filmmakers, environmentalists, and NY film enthusiasts! Want to watch amazing climate films and help shape the festival lineup? Apply to be a volunteer screener!

What You’ll Do:

• 🍿 Watch movies before anyone else. Every movie submitted to the fest is watched and evaluated by multiple screeners.

• 📝 Evaluate films using a rubric provided by CFF. Films are evaluated with a shared rubric and guide. After the initial screening period, top-rated films go to our senior programming team, who make the final selections for the 2026 festival.

• 🦸 Be an essential part of the Climate Film Fest! Your efforts are crucial in helping shape our final program!

Key Dates:

• 📝 February 18: Screener Application Deadline

• ✍️ February 20: Screener Evaluations Begin

• ⚖️ April 17: Screener Halfway Deadline

• 🛑 June 1: Screener Final Evaluations Conclude

• 🍿 September 18-21: Climate Film Festival in NYC

Screeners will dedicate ~25 hours of total screening and evaluation time. Film assignments will be rolled out over the duration of the February to June screening period, as films continue to be submitted. Learn more about the Screening Team here and apply below by Wednesday, February 18!

Apply to be a CFF Screener!

🐦 Early Bird Submissions Due February 19

The open call for CFF ’26 films is underway! We’re looking for bold and boundary-pushing works, from narrative and documentary features to experimental shorts and music videos. If it’s climate related, we want to see it!

Submissions are open until May 15, but the early bird deadline is right around the corner: Thursday, February 19.

Submit your film on FilmFreeway!

Submit by our early bird deadline to enjoy reduced rates for filmmakers:

• 📺 Shorts & Episodics: $30 $15 until Feb. 19

• ⭐️ Features: $40 $25 until Feb. 19

• 👨‍🎓 Young Filmmakers: $15 $10 until Feb. 19

Questions about our Open Call process? Check out our FAQ!

Why do we charge? CFF is a nonprofit organization, and submission fees directly support the festival. We strive to keep the fees affordable, and we do offer a limited number of submission fee waivers to anyone for whom the entry fee presents a barrier to submission.

Opportunities & Events 🌱

• Ongoing: Hiring, Communications Manager, Spherical

• 2/9: Photoville 2026 New York Portfolio Review

• 2/14: Arc’teryx x Ori Women’s Creative Grant

• 2/20: USC Annenberg Innovation Lab Civic Media Fellowship

• 2/25: Submissions due for Submerse NY: Public Art to Promote Flood Resilience in Jamaica Bay

• 3/1: Suggestions due for NYC’s first-ever Environmental Justice Place

• 3/8: Jamma Conservation & Communities Human-Centred Conservation Storytelling Grant

• 3/23: TRIGGER — FOMU, Museum of Photography Antwerp Open Call: OCEAN OTHERWISE

Heading to Park City? 🏔️ We are so excited to soak in the talent at Sundance!

Between screenings, come hang out with the Climate Film Festival team for a casual happy hour. No panels, no sponsors—just good vibes and climate cinema talk.

• 📍 Where: No Name Saloon (Upper Patio)

• ⏱️ When: Monday, 1/26, 5-7PM

• 🍻 Details: Cash bar. No formal check-in, first come, first serve.

• 📌 How to find us: Look for the organizers wearing CFF pins!

RSVP through the Luma link. See you on the patio! 🥂✨

RSVP

Learn More & Submit!

The Impact Lounge

The Impact Lounge returns to Park City, originating at the Sundance Film Festival and now a traveling hub where filmmakers, changemakers, and creative leaders come together to spark meaningful change through the power of narrative and film.

They’ll be at Prospector Square January 23–28 for a week of conversations, community, and connection—featuring great snacks, gatherings, and sessions focused on storytelling for social impact, including conversations on climate action. Registration is free, but space is limited. One registration gets you access all week long. Registration link here.

🌱 Opportunities + Events

• Ongoing: Hiring, Communications Manager, Spherical

• 1/23: Earth Lounge @ Sundance

• 1/26: CFF’s second annual climate filmmakers’ Sundance happy hour

• 1/30: Submissions due for Climate Spring’s The Hot House 2026 Writers Development Lab

• 1/31: Early Bird Deadline for the Stowe Story Labs Writer Retreats

• 2/1: Submissions due for the Artists Association of Nantucket’s Environmental Funded Artist Residency

• 2/2: Submissions due for the Catapult Research Grant

• 2/4: Chicken & Egg Research & Development Grant

• 2/5: MIT Museum’s OCEAN Open Call

• 2/25: Submissions due for Submerse NY: Public Art to Promote Flood Resilience in Jamaica Bay

• 3/1: Suggestions due for NYC’s first-ever Environmental Justice Place