Wild & Scenic Film Festival 2025

🌿 Join us for an inspiring evening of environmental storytelling 🌎

Event Details

🕒 When: Wednesday, April 2, 2025

🎬 Films: 6-8 PM

🎙️ Expert Panel Discussion: 8-9 PM

📍 Where: Matchbox 4 at MATCH, 3400 Main Street, Houston, TX, 77002

Why Attend?

Enjoy inspiring films while supporting sustainability in the Houston/Gulf Coast region.

🎬 Featured Films

I AM THE NATURE

I AM THE NATURE is a poetic documentary honoring the philosophy and cultural expression of the Achuar people from the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. Narrated by Chumpí Washikiat, a local leader, the movie dives into the insights of a man who has walked between worlds, echoing ideas of unity, empathy and harmony.

TRASHED

Landfills are an out-of-sight, out-of-mind part of everyday life in America, but in Alabama, they have long been a case for noxious odors, air and water pollution, and a lax regulatory environment that leaves communities vulnerable to environmental and health hazards. In the aftermath of a 2022 landfill fire near Birmingham that raged for months, suffocating multiple counties in smoke and odor, nearby residents demanded answers.

Return of the Manatees

Directed by Matthieu Rytz (Anote’s Art, Sundance 2018), this exquisite fly-on-the-wall environmental doc is also a gripping and up-to-the-minute tale of geopolitical, scientific, and corporate intrigue that exposes the destructive machinations of a secretive organization empowered to extract massive amounts of of metals from the deep seafloor.

The Beauty Between

The Great Salt Lake is often overlooked and misunderstood. Through her passion for wildlife photography, Mary Anne Karren unexpectedly fell in love with the lake’s unique landscape and the 10 million birds that rely on it. She now uses her photography to bring attention to the lake’s dire situation in an attempt to save it.

The Tundra

Canada has the second-most wilderness on the planet. We grew up in between the city and backcountry influenced by what we love – downtowns, outdoor hockey, polar bears, the cabin, hip hop, skate culture, and outside misadventures. But, our creative inspiration always connects back to a simple source: the wild. Antoni Gaudi, architect of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona said: “Nothing is art if it does not come from nature.” Desert. Forest. Ocean. Mountain.

MUSSEL GRUBBING

Following a citizen scientist’s journey of discovery, the film explores the treasure hunt for finding freshwater mussels in the upper Sangamon River. Everyday people in Illinois are supporting science in ways that are important to the well-being of their local environment. Finding a diverse collection of healthy mussels means a healthy river, which in turn means healthy people in the community.

On, In & Under the Sava

Armed with a raft, snorkels and flippers, four friends drift down Slovenia’s Sava River with one mission: find the elusive finned-monsters that dwell in the deep in order to help protect the river from dams.

Flowing

The river itself speaks about its dream of flowing wilder and freer again.
Dams, weirs and other obstacles disrupt the natural functioning of rivers and are detrimental to migrating fish, other river wildlife, and ultimately us humans. The good news: We can change this.

Toxic Art

On a mission to clean up Ohio’s leaking, abandoned coal mines, Ohio University Art Professor John Sabrah teamed up with an engineer to develop a process that turns the toxic runoff pollution into paint.

Biopixels

Biopixels explores the world of evolutionary biology on the microscopic scale. Using the latest light microscope technology, butterfly wings become micro-mosaics.

Vertical Meadows

As urban expansion quickly replaces natural habitats, façade engineer Alistair Law has discovered a new way to restore native ecosystems for pollinators and create natural spaces for us all within cities – by turning the walls of buildings into meadows. Alistair has developed his “Vertical Meadows” as a way to combat biodiversity loss in the heart of cities like London.

Road Warriors

Fernanda Abra leads a crucial conservation initiative in Brazil, where vehicles annually kill about 475 million vertebrates—more than double the country’s human population. She spearheads over 300 projects targeting roads with high wildlife casualties. Her approach includes installing underpasses and canopy bridges to ensure safe travel for terrestrial wildlife, like big cats, and arboreal creatures like monkeys, effectively reducing roadkill mortality.

Jaguar Passage

Jaguar populations are in decline worldwide, but the Central American country of Belize remains a big cat stronghold. Yet, the only remaining link between its protected habitats, a six-mile corridor of forest, is at risk of being severed, and conservationists are in a race against time to preserve it.

You Are Not Small

Lucy Hawking, award winning children’s book author, and daughter of scientist Stephen Hawking, makes science accessible and engaging through her numerous books. Her latest book series, Princess Olivia Investigates, is about a young girl who would rather be a scientist than a princess. Our film, “You Are Not Small”, is inspired by Olivia.