April is Earth Month, a time to honor our planet, appreciate its natural beauty, and reflect on our relationship with the environment. There are countless ways to celebrate the month, from planting trees in your local community to implementing lifestyle changes that reduce your carbon footprint, to simplifying vowing to take more nature walks. Kino Film Collection is celebrating Earth Month by highlighting a selection of titles that shed light on pressing environmental issues, explore the mysteries of the natural world, and showcase the breathtaking beauty of our planet’s vastly diverse landscapes. This April, take a moment to connect with the Earth through rich storytelling. Stream the titles below on Kino Film Collection.
Anthropocene (2019)
Narrated by Alicia Vikander, this stunning sensory experience and cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet follows the research of an international body of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group, who argue that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch in the mid-twentieth century as a result of profound and lasting human changes to the Earth.
The Pearl Button (2014)
Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival, The Pearl Button explores the supernatural landscape of Chile. With its 2,670 miles of coastline, this Latin American country is the largest archipelago in the world. In it are volcanoes, mountains, glaciers, and the Patagonian indigenous people. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.
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The Land of Azaba (2020)
Ecological restoration is a worldwide movement intended to turn back the tide of mass extinction and restore planet earth to ecological balance. The Land of Azaba immerses the viewer in a magical world where humans and wildlife work together, increasing and maintaining biodiversity, to restore the largest remaining tract of wild nature in western Europe, Campanarios de Azaba Nature Reserve.
The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future (2023)
Singing cows, fish, and bees introduce a world of magical realism in this stunning Sundance hit. Long-dead Magdalena (Mía Maestro) surfaces in a polluted river, bringing with her a wave of family secrets that send her widowed husband and daughter (Leonor Varela) into turmoil. This lyrical film offers an ambitious proposal for healing, suggesting that the dead return when they are most needed.
The Messenger (2015)
For thousands of years, songbirds were regarded by mankind as messengers from the gods. Under threat from climate change, pesticides and more, populations of hundreds of species have dipped dramatically. As scientists, activists and bird enthusiasts investigate this phenomenon, amazing secrets of the bird world come to light for the first time in this acclaimed and visually thrilling documentary.
Costa Brava, Lebanon (2021)
Nadine Labaki stars in this award-winning near-future drama about a close-knit family who have built a mountain refuge from the environmental crisis, only to have their serenity intruded upon by a government sponsored landfill that threatens to upend their relationships and way of life.
Against the Current (2021)
Veiga Grétarsdóttir is the first person in the world to attempt to kayak over 2,000 kilometers around Iceland, counter-clockwise and “against the current.” Veiga’s personal journey is no less remarkable: she was born 44 years ago as a boy in an Icelandic fishing village and at the age of 38 decided to undergo gender reassignment.
Acasa, My Home (2020)
Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, this documentary follows a family with their roots in the wilderness who struggle to conform to modern civilization and stay united after they are forced to leave behind their unconventional life and move to the city.
Landscape Film: Roberto Burle Marx (2019)
A journey through the art and life of the Brazilian landscape architect and painter best known for the iconic black-and-white mosaic promenades that line Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach. The film is a walk through the art and personality of Roberto Burle Marx, who was also a painter, cook and singer, facets little known to the general public.
Ixcanul (2015)
Winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Jayro Bustamante's brilliant debut is a mesmerizing fusion of fact and fable, a dreamlike depiction of the daily lives of Kaqchikel speaking Mayans on a coffee plantation at the base of an active volcano. Immersing us in its characters' customs, Ixcanul chronicles a disappearing tradition and a disappearing people.
Utama (2022)
In the starkly beautiful Bolivian highlands, an elderly Quechua couple lives a tranquil life herding llamas. When an uncommonly long drought threatens everything they know, they must decide whether to stay and maintain their traditional way of life or abandon their home for life in the city. Winner of a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and Bolivia's official submission to the 95th Academy Awards®.
The Woman Who Loves Giraffes (2019)
In 1956, 23-year-old biologist Anne Innis Dagg made a solo journey to South Africa to study giraffes in the wild. In The Woman Who Loves Giraffes, Anne (then 86) retraces her steps, and with letters and stunning, original 16mm film footage, offers an intimate window into her life as a young woman, juxtaposed with a first hand look at the devastating reality that giraffes are facing today.