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An evening of short films celebrating those who inspire meaningful change through climate storytelling.
Join the Library for a special screening with the DC Environmental Film Festival. As social and political tides turn, changemakers and climate communicators around the world persevere for the protection of our planet and its people. The Pulitzer Center is proud to present a few of their stories, in partnership with DCEFF, during an evening of short films celebrating those who inspire change through meaningful climate storytelling.
From the Indigenous groups preserving the soundscape of the Indonesian rainforest, to the California town fighting for clean water, to the researchers sounding an alarm on Thailand’s vanishing dugongs, these films–and their creators–highlight the determination and creativity driving worldwide climate action at this challenging time.
Film Descriptions:
Sound Guardians: Jakarta is the world’s fastest-sinking city. In response, Indonesia’s government is building a new capital city in the hills of east Borneo. But these hills are some of the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems and home to the indigenous Balik people. Abidin, a Balik elder, teams up with bioacoustic scientists to document the impacts of the new city’s construction on endangered species through sound. With his tribe’s survival at stake, recording the sounds of the forest is a way for Balik people to preserve their knowledge and pass it on to future generations – before it’s too late. Sound Guardians is a cinematic and sonic celebration of east Borneo, encouraging the viewer to reflect on their own evolving soundscapes in a time of climate upheaval.
Payuun: A crisis has been unfolding along Thailand’s shores: dugongs are washing up dead in alarming numbers. Some experts fear fewer than 120 remain. The cause is largely starvation, triggered by the rapid collapse of seagrass meadows — the dugongs’ only source of food. In a desperate search for seagrass last year dugongs migrated into a small bay in Phuket where they were spotted by an enthusiastic amateur conservationist.Theerasak “Pop” Saksritawee has been volunteering to help marine biologists to monitor the dugongs ever since, fondly naming two of his favourites Miracle and Jingjok. In this short film for The Guardian Documentaries, supported by the Pulitzer Center, Pop sounds an urgent alarm on Thailand's last dugongs before they vanish forever.
Allensworth Rising: A Fight for Water: Follows Sherry Hunter, a lifelong resident and community leader, in her tireless effort to secure safe, clean water for the historic town of Allensworth, California. Founded in 1908 by Lt. Colonel Allen Allensworth, a formerly enslaved man turned visionary, the city was created as a self-governed utopia for Black families, a place where African Americans could thrive, free from systemic oppression. Over a century later, Allensworth’s residents still fight for that original vision in the face of an arsenic water crisis that threatens their health, dignity, and future.
