"Peak Moment" (13 minutes)
Restoration forester Matthew Hall has a vision for the Aprovecho woods: a managed ancient forest. Weaker trees are made into products while the larger trees stay in the forest forever. He retains nature’s changes (like storm-dropped trees). He recruits snags. Tops snapped off of larger trees stay on the forest floor “to create a bank account of large woody debris.” He’s managing not just for the trees, but for the other communities who live here — soil, bugs, birds, and humans.
"Death and Taxes" (30 minutes)
Twenty-eight people offer their motivations for and methods of resisting the war machine with their tax money. This tightly paced film introduces viewers to war tax refusal and redirecting tax dollars to peace, with music by Sharon Jones and the DapKings, Antibalas, Rude Mechanical Orchestra, and First Strike Theatre’s version of “Don’t Pay Taxes” by Charlie King.
"Grounds for Resistance" (58.5 minutes)
This documentary film is about Coffee Strong, a coffee shop located outside the gates of the U.S. Army base Fort Lewis in Washington: its importance for its most active members, active duty soldiers and their families, veterans of recent and past conflicts, and regional and national political movements. At the center of the film are the men and women whose experiences in the military and war compel them to commit themselves to help others who are serving or have served in the past. Each individual featured in the film exists within a nuanced tangle of conflicting emotions tied to pride, dedication to service, friendship, anger, disillusionment, sadness, and guilt. The film examines each one’s stories from their decisions to join the military, their experiences of war, and their motivations for devoting themselves to Coffee Strong. It explores how their relationships with one another and their activist efforts to make a more peaceful and just world help them cope with their own experiences.
"Documentary Film Course" (14 minutes)
Ahmed Kamal documents the lives of his fellow students at the Independent Film & Television College in Baghdad as they try to get into classes, find the subjects for the films they want to make and deal with the difficulties of trying to film in Iraq at the moment. In the end the college as to close down when two people are abducted from the building and an explosion in the street below shatters all its windows.
