🌍 Happy Earth Week from CFF!
A week of films, conversations, and global events spotlighting climate action and storytelling.
Today kicks off Earth Week 2026! Earth Day begin in 1970 as a call to action, a mass mobilization that helped spark the modern environmental movement. This week, we hope to carry on that legacy with stories, voices, and conversions that highlight the power of narrative in shaping environmental action and driving change.
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)
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.
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)
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.
🎥 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.
🌱 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
4/25: Hahapocalypse: A Comedy Show to Support Climate Activists Under Attack
5/4: CFF Screening & Discussion: The Plastic Detox at Columbia University
Ongoing: Northeast Historic Film, the Chicago Film Archives, & the Lesbian Home Movie Project, The Woman Behind the Camera