Join Transitions Film Festival for a diverse selection of inspiring local and international shorts exploring the state of our world and the future we want. Films in this year’s shorts program engage with topics such as: climate change, development, renewable energy futures, design and innovation and protecting nature for future generations. 

2020 IMPACT SHORTS PROGRAM

SOMNUM
(4 min | France) Directed by Nathalie Veck

A glimpse at a future hard to imagine, impossible to forget. 

SYMMETRY
(3:58 min | Australia) Directed by Rob Plaza

We are a constantly evolving culture. A culture eternally cycling, dying, and rebirthing. The cities we live in, the jobs we have shape our direction in where we go, but are we heading in the right direction? With the constant noise of machines and growing infrastructure we sometimes forget what silence sounds like. It’s time to remember.

COPENHILL
(11 min |  Denmark) Directed by Mark von Roy 

Nearly a decade in the making, the landmark CopenHill waste-to-energy plant first imagined by Bjarke Ingels Group combines sustainability and urbanization.  Aligning with Copenhagen’s goal of becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral city by 2025, CopenHill is a 41,000m2 waste-to-energy plant with an urban recreation center and environmental education hub, turning social infrastructure into a stunning architectural landmark.

HOW TO POWER A CITY: HIGHLAND PARK
(10 min | United States) Directed by Melanie La Rosa

When the utility repossesses over 1,000 streetlights in Highland Park, Michigan, the community unites to restore them. But this town is not willing to return to something that wasn’t working in the first place — instead, a group of community activists create wifi enabled solar powered streetlights and start holding energy trainings. Taking it even further, local resident Juan Shannon stakes a new future in his hometown by founding Parker Village, a smart eco-village, on the site of an abandoned elementary school. Home to one of the first of these fancy new lights, will Parker Village be a beacon for a more sustainable future? This unabashed homage to Highland Park’s collective ingenuity reveals just how much a community that cares can accomplish.

JUNK PADDLE
(11:18 min | Australia) Directed Beau Miles

We can buy a paddle, or wood to make a paddle… but what about making one from Junk? Junk paddle is a fun and quirky film that reminds us that we can have meaningful experiences without having to consume new products. When we become the creators, we gain a new appreciation for what we have. 

PILLIGA RISING
(39:45 min | Australia) Directed by Mark Pearce

A salt-of-the-earth farmer, a crafty business owner, a young Indigenous multimedia artist and an experienced citizen scientist rise up to protect their communities against a proposed coal seam gas-field in the Pilliga forest; a million acres of iconic Australian bush. 

An oil and gas corporation plan to drill 850 wells through the Great Artesian Basin – one of the largest underground freshwater reservoirs in the world – which flows beneath the Pilliga. Now, the people who live in this rural New South Wales region are united to protect the land and water against this threat and determined to win their freedom.