12th Annual UNCG International Sustainability Shorts Film Competition
An annual short film competition held in the Spring semester that incorporates and addresses the elements of UNCG's definition of sustainability: social equity, the environment, the economy, and aesthetics. As part of the annual UNCG Sustainability Film & Discussion Series, the competition is an opportunity to share new artistic works in the international community that addresses the urgency of the climate crisis and acknowledges the power of film to connect, communicate, and convince.
This year's films are judged by T'Shari White, a PhD candidate in UNCG's Department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability. And by Jean Michel Rolland, a long time musician, painter, and filmmaker (and previous competition winner) based in France.
Winners receive a cash prize ($300, $200, $100) and will be announced on the website in early May. Vote for the Audience Choice Award here.
MOTHER NATURE
Maisha Maene

Viewing Password: MotherNature@2020
Disgusted by the already deplorable behavior of the human being towards his nature (environment), NURU, a woman citizen of the planet with an overflowing imagination, decides to paint the engine oil which she uses as metaphor to pass a message to the future generation.
Maisha Maene is an Afro-Futurist RD Congolese filmmaker and photographer. He participates in several workshops and cinema masterclasses at the Yole! Africa and R. P.D.FI (Film Production and Diffusion Network) in Goma.
Total Eclipse
Robert Ladislas Derr

Parental advisory: This video contains nudity.
Very good indicators of climate change, most glaciers have shrunk by 50 percent over the last 100 years. At Mt. Hood, Oregon I position myself between two trees and slowly raise as my posterior eclipses the mountain. The relationship between humans and the environment is complicated and imbalanced. How do we work with nature when technology and society requires its exploitation?
Robert Ladislas Derr is a visual artist making performances from live to intervention, videos, photographs, and multimedia installations. He has exhibited and performed widely at venues, including the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (US), Canberra Contemporary Art Space (Australia), Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (Germany), Wexner Center for the Arts (US), LIVE Performance Art Biennale (Canada), and Irish Film Institute (Ireland). Derr earned his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
1850
Natasha Jensen

Viewing Password: 1850
I am examining the garden as an active site of power. Through historical archives and the history of classification, we are able to unearth the colonial and ecological issues found within, to draw attention to an ideological struggle that is taking place in these seemingly passive spaces. The garden is both a natural and unnatural space when we consider the amount of human intervention and cultivation that takes place within.
Natasha Jensen is an interdisciplinary artist from Moh’kins’tsis/Calgary, Treaty 7 territory in the Southern Alberta region, Canada. Jensen completed her BFA at Alberta University of the Arts (formerly Alberta College of Art and Design) in 2013 and currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland after completing their MA in Contemporary Art Practice at the Edinburgh College of Art. Natasha has exhibited in online exhibitions, galleries, and festivals in Canada and the UK.
The Dreaming Biome
Jeremy Newman

This experimental film immerses viewers in a nature dream. Viewers watch plant and animal life in an ecosystem that appears natural, but doesn't physically exist. Some of these elements, juxtaposed via editing, are miles apart in actuality. The editing also imparts a visual rhythm that echoes breathing. The visuals are familiar, yet strange. They are arrived at by various editing techniques. Ultimately, the experience is aesthetic and made visceral by digital manipulations. The surreal visuals highlight the beauty and wonder of nature, but they're haunting. A glove floating in water is a key image, literally pollution and symbolic of drowning. In this film, there is life, and these living things are already ghosts.
Jeremy Newman has directed numerous documentary and experimental videos. His work is frequently shown at film festivals and has also aired on several PBS stations. He is Associate Professor of Communications at Stockton University. Newman earned an MFA in Media Arts from The Ohio State University.
An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language
Izzy Catterall

My vision for this film was to create an urgency for change in physical actions as well as perception regarding the worldwide issues of climate change and animal abuse. By bringing footage of humans closely together with footage of animals, I hope that this film can bridge the gap between animals and humans not only in terms of hierarchy, but also in terms of how people tend to view them as a food/product rather than a sentient being - often referred to as speciesism.
Izzy Catterall is a a recently graduated freelance contemporary dancer from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.
#SOMOSAMAZONIA
Joao Inacio

Viewing Password: amazon123@
Does the Brazilian Acre state exist? So many tell jokes without knowing the risks and tensions faced by this Brazilian state that has in itself one of the largest and most threatened heritage of humanity... the Amazon. Does the world understand the importance of for the environment?
Joao Inacio is filmmaker and script writer. His films have been screened and awarded prizes in Brazil and abroad. Producer of several types of films, his documentaries with themes related to the defense of the environment stand out.
How Blue is Your Ocean
Joe Pisciotta

The fish eat the plastic. We eat the fish. Figure it out!
Since 2007, madridSTREETfilms has been selected in over 200 film festivals in the U.S., online and abroad. We have aired on PBS and Public Access TV in the U.S. and Europe. For independent film and commentary visit madridstreetfilms.com for a look at our work.
Selfie
Nayra Sanz Fuentes

Viewing Password: EIFLES
This conceptual and sensory miniature rethinks the concept of the social (self) portrait by playing with the distortions of a Big Brother impassively watching over us. A technological state of permanent control, of mechanization of a daily life ruled by a human-made inventiveness that has ended up taking control of our lives.
Nayra Sanz Fuentes is a director, screenwriter, editor and producer. Her filmography includes one feature film and eight fiction and non-fiction short films that have been exhibited in cultural centers, universities and festivals such as IDFA, Busan, Málaga or Alcances. In them she reflects on the construction of our contemporary societies in relation to the pulse that is maintained between nature, man and machine. She is a programmer at the MiradasDoc festival and the DOCMA Cycle, among others. As a teacher, she has taught courses in centers such as the LENS school, LAV Master or San Antonio de Los Baños.