• 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. on Friday, March 6, at the Cambria Hotel (followed by filmmaker Q&A)
• 4:15 p.m.–5:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 7, at Flagship Theater #5 (followed by filmmaker Q&A)

In the Ocean City Film Festival’s Environmental Stewardship showcase, filmmakers

advocate for the Earth on the global and local scale. This showcase highlights perspectives from across the world — island communities in the Chesapeake, an urban neighborhood near Washington, D.C., the pristine waters of an Australian peninsula, a small island in Maine, and the northeastern coast of Brazil. Though these films are radically different in style, they’re alike in their ability to remind viewers that there is good in the world, and that people are fighting to protect and preserve the environment every day.

The Plastic Problem

In The Plastic Problem, director Lucy Dabbs unpacks a universal problem — the feeling of being haunted by plastic. The three-minute stop-motion short is, despite its subject, full of whimsy and delight. In the film (an artistic and technical feat, composed of 2,130 photos and 1,727 pieces of trash from the side of the road), a woman is followed by an ever-growing mound of plastic. The viewer follows the plastic back to its origin point and through a beautifully animated seascape made of plastic packaging, complete with candy bar wrapper fish and a Lay’s potato chip bag sun. The Plastic Problem cleverly skewers corporations in their complicity, but also reminds the viewer that there are things everyday people can do to fight the plastic problem.

Refuge in the Bay

Samuel Draper’s Refuge in the Bay tells the story of two remote islands in the Chesapeake Bay and the people who live there. Smith Island and Tangier Island are both threatened by erosion and rising sea levels, but also by the fact that old residents are dying, and nobody is coming to take their place. I’ve known about both of these islands for a long time, but Refuge in the Bay makes the reality the islanders face hit home in a different way. The short, direct interviews and gorgeous, grounded camera work in Refuge makes these climate change problems feel personal. At the end, one of the film’s subjects presents the sobering reality — when most people leave their homes, they have the opportunity to come back any time they want. The people who call Smith and Tangier home might not have that opportunity.

Of The Ocean

Toward the beginning of Of the Ocean, in incantatory voiceover, Australian filmmaker Lola Broomhall reflects on who she is, who we are: “Part of everything, before everything was commoditized, or turned into a something.”

Using stunning underwater cinematography and elegantly performed choreography, Broomhall invites the viewer to plunge into the ocean. This short film is at once deeply personal and universal — not unlike the ocean itself. Most of us have our own memories and feelings about the ocean, but there’s also so much of it that we don’t and can’t know, and that frankly isn’t for us. Of the Ocean is a poetic meditation on humans’ relationship to nature, and how we aren’t as separate from it as we might think. Ultimately, the film reminds the viewer to be awake to sensations and experiences, and to move through the world with constant curiosity.

The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue

In The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue, director Richard Riggs Hall follows author Mike Tidwell through his neighborhood in Takoma Park, Maryland, where dozens of old growth oak trees have died in the past several years. The trees were plagued by a mold called phytopthora (which translates to “plant destroyer” in Greek) caused by climate-change-induced rainfall. Tidwell points out how important oak trees are for sustaining all kinds of life forms, and how their loss is both an ecological and emotional one for the neighborhood. Despite its focus on the dying trees, The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue maintains an undertone of hope. Even as climate change affects the community, trees have continued to survive, people are embracing clean energy, and community members keep adapting and showing up for one another.

MUKUNÃN APRENDIZ DE PAJÉ

This short film — which translates to “Mukunãn, shaman’s apprentice” — follows a young man, Makunãn, as he prepares to become shaman of the Potiguara Katu village in Brazil. The film examines the contrast between Potiguara traditions — which emphasize protecting and honoring the natural world — and the extractive culture of modern Brazil.

Director Rodrigo Sena immerses the viewer in Mukunãn’s world, eschewing conventions like voiceover narration and talking heads. The film’s messaging is clear without being heavy-handed, and Sena chooses to let the actions of his subjects speak for themselves — such as when they ask for permission from plants to pick and use them, save parts of cashews for animals to eat, or exchange a roast chicken for a pair of reptiles and return them to their natural homes. MUKUNÃN APRENDIZ DE PAJÉ makes the viewer think twice about what we take from the earth and why, and provides a warning: “Excessiveness is venom.”