First Daughter and the Black Snake

The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.

Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet

David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.

There's Something in the Water

Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.

The Current: Explore the Healing Powers of the Ocean

The Current tells the story of individuals from all walks of life that have faced incredible obstacles, found the drive to overcome their disabilities, and have through water sports become real everyday heroes. - Bethany Hamilton, Missy Franklin, Mallory Weggemann, Anthony Robles, Jesse Murphree

Sports

The film is about a protest provoked when the university decided to restrict access to sports facilities to athletes, cutting out all other students. This is, strictly speaking, not a Prokino film. It was produced by the Waseda University Film Circle, which was organized by Kawazoe Shiro. Feature film directors Yamamoto Satsuo and Taniguchi Senkichi were apparently students at Waseda at the time and participated in the production.

Einsame Atolle, geheime Welten

The endless expanses of the Indian Ocean are home to the last natural paradises: Remote atolls surrounded by coral reefs in crystal clear water. Whole regions of this ocean are still unexplored, many reefs are not marked on any map. The departure of the research vessel Agulhas II from the island of La Réunion marks the beginning of one of the greatest scientific adventures of our time. The expedition, initiated by Monaco Explorations with the support of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, lasted six weeks and led into the Western Indian Ocean along the Mascarene Plateau.

Cold Refuge

Cold Refuge is about the physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects of full immersion in the natural world: how, though it may seem counter-intuitive, swimming in cold water helps mitigate some of life’s most serious challenges. The film’s diverse film subjects include a wheelchair-bound, paralyzed swimmer who faces fear by diving off a high pier; a Black man who was told by whites when he was 13 that “Black people don’t swim” (it took him 30 years to try); a blind man who tethers himself to a sighted swimmer; a woman with aggressive breast cancer who “swims to chemo;” a lawyer who reduces courtroom stress in the open water; and a young woman who communes with her late mother in San Francisco Bay, where they both swam together. Along with swimmers’ stories of adversity and resilience, the film’s marine mammals, birds, artwork, and a variety of open-water locations create a visual meditation on what it means to escape our abstract digital world in favor of what’s real.

Touch the Wall

Swimming superstar Missy Franklin was destined for greatness at an early age, but it wasn't until the arrival of Veteran Kara Lynn Joyce that those sky-high expectations began to take shape.

Broken Rainbow

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.

Flint

In 2014, the authorities in Flint, Michigan chose to cut costs and change the city’s domestic water supply from the great Lakes to the Flint River. Soon tap water was running brown, people were falling ill and it was clear that something was seriously wrong. Anthony Baxter (You’ve Been Trumped) has followed the situation over six years of denial, evasion, betrayal and hypocrisy in which the city’s poorest residents have suffered the most. The result is shocking and sad as it illuminates the inequalities of the modern world and celebrates the solidarity of ordinary people.

Float

Float is an artistic 4-5 minute film shot completely underwater of trans folks swimming naked set to music by trans musician Rae Spoon.

To the Sea

Before leaving for Rome with his mother, five year old Natan is taken by his father, Jorge, on an epic journey to the pristine Chinchorro reef off the coast of Mexico. As they fish, swim, and sail the turquoise waters of the open sea, Natan discovers the beauty of his Mayan heritage and learns to live in harmony with life above and below the surface, as the bond between father and son grows stronger before their inevitable farewell.

The Original Mermaid

Story of Annette Kellerman, the international swimming vaudeville and silent screen star whose life story inspired the MGM classic Million Dollar Mermaid starring Esther Williams, which featured lavish Busby Berkeley scenes.

Gasland

It is happening all across America-rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from an energy company wanting to lease their property. Reason? The company hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas." Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground-a hydraulic drilling process called "fracking"-and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.

Toxic Soup

Something is bad wrong as everyday Americans fight to protect their air, water and blood from pollution.

Home

In 200,000 years of existence, man has upset the balance on which the Earth had lived for 4 billion years. Global warming, resource depletion, species extinction: man has endangered his own home. But it is too late to be pessimistic: humanity has barely ten years left to reverse the trend, become aware of its excessive exploitation of the Earth's riches, and change its consumption pattern.

The Devil We Know

Unraveling one of the biggest environmental scandals of our time, a group of citizens in West Virginia take on a powerful corporation after they discover it has knowingly been dumping a toxic chemical — now found in the blood of 99.7% of Americans — into the local drinking water supply.

Open Water

Nikki is no professional athlete. Still, she swims the English channel to raise money for a good cause.

Des Rives

Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature

Documentary on water usage, money, politics, the transformation of nature, and the growth of the American west, shown on PBS as a four-part miniseries.