The Great Climate Film Fest Guide 2025
Tickets are going fast! What to watch, how to fest, and what to expect.
The Climate Film Festival is almost here! With 50 films and 32 premieres, it may be a little overwhelming. Luckily, we’re here to help!
Dive into this guide for:
⚡️ Lightning Recommendations
🎬 What to Watch
If you’ve been waiting to get tickets, today’s the day: use code 2025GUIDE10 for 10% off—expiring tomorrow!
⚡️ Lightning Recommendations
For our 🎪 Tentpole Programs, catch Erin Brockovich for opening night, our centerpiece screening The Whitehouse Effect, and close out with Trade Secret.
For cinephiles who love 🎬 Fiction & Form, catch our excellent narrative shorts program Soft Rains, Hard Truths, break boundaries at Tectonics: Experimental Shorts, and see The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard blend Japanese folklore and environmental dread into a dreamlike, violent fable.
For 🌅 Better Horizons, watch formerly incarcerated wildfire fighters find their place in Firebreak, hear the voice of the next generation at Future Council, and see solutions on screen at Eco-nomics: Doc Shorts.
For 🐻❄️ Biodiversity & Conservation, head to the Everglades in River of Grass, learn about conservation efforts at Animal Science: Doc Shorts, and catch a stunning investigative doc on the polar bear trade in Trade Secret.
For ⚖️ Environmental Justice, interpret post-hurricane Houston through dance with Raising Aniya, head to California with Firebreak, see citizen journalism in Siberia in Black Snow, and cap it off with stunning stories of indigenous resilience around the world in Landback: Doc Shorts.
For 🥗 Food & Agriculture, go behind the scenes of the modern meat industry (and how to fix it) in The Jungle, and fight food waste in a reality TV competition with Next Gen Chef: Baking the Grade (free w/ RSVP).
For ✨ Art & Poetics, find beauty in the landscape with River of Grass, through dance and art in Raising Aniya, and poetic films in Tectonics: Experimental Shorts.
Seven climate researchers go to group therapy in Secaucus—what could go wrong? In⚕️Health & Wellbeing, climate and mental health collide in Talk About It: Double Feature, and the health impacts of coal in Black Snow become center stage thanks to brave investigative journalism.
For parents and kids, 🌱 Family & Future Generations features Seedling Shorts: Family & Kids for kids 4+ with puppets, animation, and a live performance, and Future Council takes kids to boardrooms to give them a voice.
📽️ What to Watch
🎪 Tentpole Programs
Erin Brockovich (Fri, Sept. 19 at 7:00 PM)
The Whitehouse Effect (Sat, Sept. 20 at 5:00 PM)
Trade Secret (Sun, Sept. 21 at 5:00 PM)
The festival kicks off Friday, Sept. 19 with the 25-year anniversary screening of Erin Brockovich, in a new 4k remaster. Supported by Universal, this special event includes a post-screening conversation featuring producer Michael Shamberg, moderated by Guardian journalist Dharna Noor.
Our centerpiece Saturday screening is The Whitehouse Effect, a riveting look at how climate became a partisan issue. Focused on the pivotal years of the George H.W. Bush administration, the film uses archival footage to reveal how a moment of broad consensus around global warming was deliberately squandered, as political power struggles and industry influence set the stage for decades of delay and division. Followed by a Q&A moderated by Guardian journalist Dharna Noor.
Close out with the international premiere of Trade Secret, a startling exposé on the trade in polar bear skins. A beautifully shot thriller of investigative journalism, the film tracks the trade through illicit backrooms through to the UN CITES process. Opening remarks from Dr. Sylvia Earle, followed by a post-screening Q&A with director Abraham Joffe, Ole J. Liodden, Cristina Mittermeier, and Paul Nicklen, moderated by Costas Christ.
🎬 Fiction & Form
Soft Rains, Hard Truths: Narrative Shorts (Sat, Sept. 20 at 12:00 PM)
Tectonics: Experimental Shorts (Sat, Sept. 20 at 3:30 PM)
The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard (Sat, Sept. 20 at 7:45 PM)
Mythical creatures, mushroom trips, alien archaeologists, and mutating children—Soft Rains, Hard Truths: Narrative Shorts remixes time, genre, and logic to explore the wild edges of climate collapse. Followed by a Q&A with four directors, moderated by Good Energy’s Bruno Olmedo Quiroga.
Through temporal imagery and fragmented narratives, the first edition of Tectonics: Experimental Shorts gives space to subjectivity, interpolated with non-human perspectives, fictional possibilities, and new filmic forms. Followed by a Q&A with three directors, moderated by filmmaker Cosmo Bjorkenheim.
The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard blends Japanese folklore and environmental dread into a dreamlike, violent fable. Following a girl raised by wolves captured from her pack and drawn into a strange surrogate family adrift on a collapsing world, the film becomes a haunting allegory of power, captivity, and survival.
🌅 Better Horizons
Firebreak (Sat, Sept. 20 at 6:00 PM)
Future Council (Sun, Sept. 21 at 10:00 AM)
Eco-nomics: Doc Shorts (Sun, Sept. 21 at 12:00 PM)
Firebreak blazes with urgency at the intersection of climate justice and redemption, following two men who turn their time as incarcerated firefighters into a movement for second chances. Stay after for a Q&A with protagonist Royal Ramey, moderated by Guardian journalist Sam Levin.
School of Rock meets An Inconvenient Truth: Future Council invites eight kids on an epic adventure across Europe. Their mission is to better understand the planet’s predicament, explore solutions and, most importantly, take the conversation from the streets, into the boardrooms of some of the world’s largest polluters and most influential companies. Introduced by author and reporter, Anya Kamenetz.
From kelp and carbon to forests and fashion, Eco-nomics: Doc Shorts is an inspiring program of shorts highlighting communities taking the climate crisis into their own hands through local solutions. Sponsored by Watershed and featuring a post-screening Q&A with the filmmakers, moderated by Watershed’s Kate Custus.
🐻❄️ Biodiversity & Conservation
River of Grass (Sat, Sept. 20 at 10:30 AM)
Animal Science: Doc Shorts (Sun, Sept. 21 at 10:00 AM)
Trade Secret (Sun, Sept. 20 at 5:00 PM)
River of Grass is a lyrical and deeply personal portrait of the Florida Everglades, blending archival footage, vérité storytelling, and the voices of its inhabitants to capture a region on the brink. Drawing on the legacy of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Miccosukee educator Betty Osceola, the film confronts history’s scars and today’s ecological urgencies, asking how we might come together as true caretakers of the future.
Animal Science takes us from the Arctic tundra to the Mongolian steppe, Patagonia, and New York City, revealing the remarkable lives of the animals who share our planet and the human communities reimagining how to live alongside them—whether dismantling fences for ancient migrations, safeguarding seabirds, or redesigning cities to welcome migrating flocks. Co-presented with the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. Followed by a Q&A with three directors, moderated by Lívia Campos de Menezes of the Wild & Scenic Film Festival.
Close out with the international premiere of Trade Secret, a startling exposé on the trade in polar bear skins. A beautifully shot thriller of investigative journalism, the film tracks the trade through illicit backrooms through to the UN CITES process. Opening remarks from Dr. Sylvia Earle, followed by a post-screening Q&A with director Abraham Joffe, Ole J. Liodden, Cristina Mittermeier, and Paul Nicklen, moderated by Costas Christ.
⚖️ Environmental Justice
Raising Aniya (Sat, Sept. 20 at 1:00 PM)
Firebreak (Sat, Sept. 20 at 6:00 PM)
Black Snow (Sat, Sept. 20 at 8:15 PM)
Landback: Doc Shorts (Sun, Sept. 21 at 2:15 PM)
After being displaced by a hurricane, young Houston dancer Aniya Wingate turns to art to heal and reclaim her voice. In Raising Aniya, she travels Gulf Coast communities with her mentor Walter Hull, weaving stories of environmental injustice, family, religion, sexuality, and mental health into movement. Intimate vérité, evocative choreography, and a haunting score shape this powerful coming-of-age portrait of transformation and the strength of art and community. Followed by a Q&A with director John Feige and protagonists Aniya Wingate and Walter Hull.
Firebreak blazes with urgency at the intersection of climate justice and redemption, following two men who turn their time as incarcerated firefighters into a movement for second chances. Stay after for a Q&A with protagonist Royal Ramey, moderated by Guardian journalist Sam Levin.
When coal ash drifts down like snow in Siberia, Natalia Zubkova begins filming, transforming from homemaker to citizen journalist exposing environmental devastation and corruption. Black Snow is both an intimate portrait and a tense investigative thriller, revealing the steep personal cost of speaking truth in a system built to silence. Followed by a Q&A with Director Alina Simone and Producer Kirstine Barfod, moderated by award-winning Mongabay journalist, Karla Mendes.
Spanning Australia, Kenya, Mexico, Bolivia, and Standing Rock, Landback: Doc Shorts showcases Indigenous communities reclaiming land, lifeways, and sovereignty. From ancient fire practices to solar power, from resistance to renewal, each film reveals how tradition and innovation intertwine to confront climate crisis and colonial legacies. Followed by a Q&A with four directors and Joseph McNeil, protagonist of one of the films.
🥗 Food & Agriculture
The Jungle (Sat, Sept. 20 at 2:30 PM)
Next Gen Chef: Baking the Grade (Sun, Sept. 21 at 12:30 PM)
A modern-day take on Upton Sinclair’s iconic book, The Jungle exposes how profit-driven conglomerates have manipulated America’s meat industry for over a century: wrecking ecosystems, exploiting workers, and fueling climate change. Featuring food icon Mark Bittman alongside industry insiders, labor organizers, and farmers like Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, the film reveals both the devastating costs of our food system and the Indigenous-rooted methods that could point toward a more just and sustainable future. Followed by a Q&A with director Matt Wechsler and protagonist Reginaldo Haslett-Maroquinn, moderated by Chef Ken Baker of Rethink Food.
Inside the world's most prestigious culinary school, 21 of America's hottest young chefs compete in a cut throat competition to see who is worthy of being crowned as a generational talent. In Next Gen Chef: Baking the Grade, watch the chefs use culinary byproducts as the main ingredient for their dessert creation. Followed by a Q&A with Michael Simkin (EP), Andrew Sargent (Contestant), and Nikki Minervini (Contestant); moderated by Cyle Zezo, Reality of Change. [Free with RSVP]
✨ Art & Poetics
River of Grass (Sat, Sept. 20 at 10:30 AM)
Raising Aniya (Sat, Sept. 20 at 1:00 PM)
Tectonics: Experimental Shorts (Sat, Sept. 20 at 3:30 PM)
River of Grass is a lyrical and deeply personal portrait of the Florida Everglades, blending archival footage, vérité storytelling, and the voices of its inhabitants to capture a region on the brink. Drawing on the legacy of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Miccosukee educator Betty Osceola, the film confronts history’s scars and today’s ecological urgencies, asking how we might come together as true caretakers of the future.
After being displaced by a hurricane, young Houston dancer Aniya Wingate turns to art to heal and reclaim her voice. In Raising Aniya, she travels Gulf Coast communities with her mentor Walter Hull, weaving stories of environmental injustice, family, religion, sexuality, and mental health into movement. Intimate vérité, evocative choreography, and a haunting score shape this powerful coming-of-age portrait of transformation and the strength of art and community. Followed by a Q&A with director John Feige and protagonists Aniya Wingate and Walter Hull.
Through temporal imagery and fragmented narratives, the first edition of Tectonics: Experimental Shorts gives space to subjectivity, interpolated with non-human perspectives, fictional possibilities, and new filmic forms. Followed by a Q&A with three directors, moderated by filmmaker Cosmo Bjorkenheim.
⚕️ Health & Wellbeing
Black Snow (Sat, Sept. 20 at 8:15 PM)
Talk About It: Double Feature (Sun, Sept. 21 at 2:30 PM)
When coal ash drifts down like snow in Siberia, Natalia Zubkova begins filming, transforming from homemaker to citizen journalist exposing environmental devastation and corruption. Black Snow is both an intimate portrait and a tense investigative thriller, revealing the steep personal cost of speaking truth in a system built to silence. Followed by a Q&A with Director Alina Simone and Producer Kirstine Barfod, moderated by award-winning Mongabay journalist, Karla Mendes.
Seven climate researchers go to group therapy in Secaucus—what could go wrong? Climate in Therapy turns the academic taboo of scientists talking feelings into a surprising, funny, and deeply human experiment, exposing the raw emotions beneath the data. Paired with Guilt Trip, about two former pilots confronting aviation’s climate toll, Talk About It: Double Feature tackles the anxiety and reckoning that every profession must face in a warming world. Followed by a Q&A with Orban Wallace (director, Guilt Trip) and Climate in Therapy subjects Mizuki Takahashi, Sonali McDermid, and Richard Beck.
🌱 Family & Future Generations
Seedling Shorts: Family & Kids (Sat, Sept. 20 at 10:15 AM)
Future Council (Sun, Sept. 21 at 10:00 AM)
Seeds, sprouts, climate—oh my! Join us for this family-friendly shorts program filled with puppets, community gardens, and Mark Ruffalo-guided adventures. Seedling Shorts: Family & Kids tackles climate education 101, and big feelings around our shared planet—while finding joy and light to guide us through the tough conversations. This program will be followed by special kid-friendly performance by Suzie Hicks the Climate Chick. Bring your little ones (ages 4+) to sing, play, and ask questions to the filmmakers!
School of Rock meets An Inconvenient Truth: Future Council invites eight kids on an epic adventure across Europe. Their mission is to better understand the planet’s predicament, explore solutions and, most importantly, take the conversation from the streets, into the boardrooms of some of the world’s largest polluters and most influential companies. Introduced by author and reporter, Anya Kamenetz.
📍Venues
Our primary venue is Regal Essex Crossing at 129 Delancey Street. in the Lower East Side. We’ll be there all day on Saturday, Sept. 20 and Sunday, Sept. 21 in two cinemas, and will be running public programs downstairs at Essex Market.
Our opening night venue on Sept. 19 is DGA Theater at 110 W. 57th Street. The inaugural Narrative Change Summit will take place Monday, Sept. 22 at SVA Theatre in Chelsea at 333 W 23 Street.
🙋 Volunteer at CFF 2025!
Calling all film lovers, environmentalists, and local New Yorkers! We’re on the lookout for energetic, passionate, creative, and hands-on volunteers to help out at CFF.
Whether it’s working the box office, greeting filmmakers, or whipping up climate solutions social media content, our CFF volunteer team is the glue that holds the festival together.
Interested in volunteering with us? Click here to learn more and apply.
🙏 Thank You to our 2025 Festival Sponsors & Supporters
Support for the festival comes from The Carmack Collective, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), Universal Pictures, Nespresso, Agog, Watershed, Climate Power, Earth Rising Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, SNØCAP, Tidal Vision, Pique Action, Earthrise Studio, Mercy for Animals, and The Puffin Foundation.
The Guardian is the presenting media sponsor. The festival logo and design come from Studio Rodrigo. Legal services are from Romanette Legal. Earth Angel is the sustainability partner. Ecodeo created the festival trailer. The Everset provided furniture. Edge Auto loaned electrical vehicle services. The marquee theater partner is Regal. Awards are hand-crafted by Fernanda Uribe-Horta. Business development services were provided by ImpactECI.
Food and beverage in-kind partners include Bronx Brewery, Stumptown, Cafe d’Avignon, Rebel Cheese, Rethink Food, and Open Water. Screenings and events take place at DGA Theater, Regal Essex Crossing, Essex Market, and SVA Theatre.
This project is made possible in part with funds from Creative Engagement, a regrant program supported by the funding agencies the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), and the Howard Gilman Foundation, and administered by LMCC.