SunChild 2026

Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope

David Lickley

2023 · 45m · Documentary

Jane Goodall-Reasons For hope is an uplifting journey with stories to inspire people to make a difference in the world. Three different conservation stories illustrate Jane's pillars of hope.

A Paradise Lost

Laurie Sumiye

2025 · 1h 29m · Animation · Documentary

The film unfolds through the POV of the Palila called Anuenue who stood as the client in 1979 court trials. The legal battle leveraged the Endangered Species Act to protect māmane forests where 2,500 Palila competed with introduced sheep & goats. He explains how they won in court, but are still in jeopardy; in 2024, only 300 Palila remain. Today, a Native Hawaiian conservationist struggles to save them amidst escalating threats of climate change, wildfires, introduced predators, diseases, and governmental neglect.

Dandelion's Odyssey

Momoko Seto

2026 · 1h 16m · Animation · Science Fiction · Family

Two dandelion balls are the only survivors of a series of nuclear explosions that are destroying the Earth. At the end of their odyssey, they will find a new soil for the survival of their species.

Daughters of the Forest

Otilia Portillo Padua

2026 · 1h 35m · Documentary

Deep in Mexico’s mushroom-rich forests, two women from indigenous communities have become mycologists. This immersive sci-fi documentary follows their unusual, fungi-driven paths as they seek to reconcile the past and present while reimagining the future for themselves and the changing world they inhabit.

Deep Ocean: Kingdom of the Coelacanth

Norio Matsumura

2025 · 51m

David Attenborough looks into the ocean's depths to discuss the coelacanth, a primeval fish hidden for 400 million years. Its movements reveal vital clues about life's journey from sea to land, as well as secrets of evolution and survival.

Let Our Mountains Live

Håvard Bustnes

2026 · 1h 40m · Documentary

Sami reindeer herders win a Supreme Court victory against Europe’s largest wind farm - but when the state refuses to act, their fight reveals a deeper crisis of justice and trust.

Trade Secret

Abraham Joffe

2025 · 1h 40m · Documentary · Thriller

Trade Secret follows three unlikely allies on a mission to protect polar bears from international commercial trade. Filmed over six years across 13 countries, the film exposes the sanctioned sale of hundreds of polar bears each year on the global market. But as the investigation deepens, it uncovers a disturbing truth: those entrusted with safeguarding the species may be entangled in their continued commercialisation. The film raises urgent questions about how we protect vulnerable wildlife in a world where the lines between protection and exploitation have become blurred.

A Clawsome Tale

Lucie Machin

2026 · 22m · Documentary

This whimsical, entertaining short documentary dives into the wondrous world of The National Lobster Hatchery in Cornwall (UK). The National Lobster Hatchery opened in 2000, to help prevent a collapse in European Lobster populations in the region, following similar collapses in Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. Narrated by Lowenna (a European Lobster), the film follows her journey through the hatchery, and that of here offspring, who start their lives there before being released back into the ocean. Through her eyes, we also meet the passionate people working to protect her species: including Cornish fisherman Dan Gilbert and Head of Hatchery Production Ben Marshall.

Becoming Nature Positive

Marco Lambertini

2025 · 30m

Becoming Nature Positive is a new first-of-its-kind 30-minute film created by the Nature Positive Initiative and co-produced with Open Planet Studios, featuring top voices from across the global sustainability community. How would you define nature positively, in three words? What does nature positive mean? Why does it matter, and why now? And why should we all care? What do scientists, business leaders, civil society executives and public sector actors have to say about it? Becoming Nature Positive delves into these questions and more, inspired by the book, Becoming Nature Positive: Transitioning to a Safe and Just Future․

Chuuraa

Evgenia Arbugaeva

2026 · 17m · Documentary

In the remote Siberian Arctic, an Indigenous Sakha scientist descends into the depths of the melting permafrost. Searching for an ancient creature, he makes his way through the dangerous, claustrophobic caves to the mythical realm of the Underworld.

Land

Martin Cooper

2025 · 10m

As climate change increasingly transfigures our world, two artists living on different continents (Nii Obodai from Ghana, and Nakajima Hiroyuki from Japan), explain how their creative work reflects what the notion of "LAND" means to them.

Like Friend, Like Deer

Malek Eghbali

2025 · 14m · Animation

After killing an illegal hunter in self-defense, a wildlife ranger is forced to confront the blurred line between protector and predator, revealing the unsettling parallels between humans, animals, and the wilderness they inhabit.

Misery and Other Choices

Samuel Lucas Allen

2026 · 10m

The world sizzles with climate change. A politician lets it burn. A young couple finds out they are pregnant. What should they do if they find the politician alone and barely breathing? A darkly comic drama that asks what will you do when the world is on fire?

Penguins of the Point

Derek Robitaille

2025 · 17m · Documentary

A short wildlife documentary that explores the daily lives of penguins at Volunteer Point in the Falkland Islands, showcasing the resilience of these remarkable birds as they face both predators and modern threats such as climate change, commercial fishing, and avian influenza.

Risky Routes

Jonas Steiner

2026 · 6m · Documentary

Every year, thousands of toads make the arduous journey back to the waters of their birth to reproduce. They have to overcome numerous dangers along the way - from dangerous roads to other obstacles that turn their journey into a fight for survival.

Rock Pool

Dan McKay

2025 · 17m · Documentary

From murky kelp forests to scallop burial grounds and a UV lit cosmic expanse, ROCK POOL’s non-narrative flow draws its audience through the circadian cycles that turn the worlds beneath our feet.

SLOOT – Life in the Ditch

Arthur de Bruin

2025 · 11m

A typical Dutch ditch: Rarely worthy of a second glance. But those who look closer discover a rich ecosystem, teeming with life and intricate connections. Beneath the surface of a Dutch waterway lies a hidden world. In this short nature film, we follow the lives of fish, insects, and birds across the changing seasons, from winter’s stillness to summer’s abundance. SLOOT is a tribute to biodiversity in a man-made landscape.

Stone Biter: Saving the Arctic Sea Forests

Ismaele Tortella

2026 · 20m · Documentary

When an Italian photographer moves to Northern Norway, he carries a dream: to explore the icy Arctic waters and film the iconic wolffish amongst lush kelp forests. But beneath the surface, he finds a stark reality - an ocean floor stripped bare, where the once-thriving sea forests have nearly vanished.

TASBAQA

Saxon Bosworth

2025 · 10m

Our goal with "TASBAQA" was to highlight the symbiotic relationship between the Ustyurt Plateau: a vast, harsh and lesser-known ecosystem, and the Central Asian Tortoise, a wild, specialised, and extraordinarily resilient creature. A *never-seen-before story* that showcases the long standing relationships within our natural world, its ecosystems, flora and fauna, water, and climate.

The Farmer's Daughter

Melissa Bloom

2026 · 13m

Melissa is the founder of The Sisters Bloom, an eco-conscious stop-motion animation studio in Kalispell, Montana. After working for several years in Hollywood, on projects such as Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken and David O’Russell’s American Hustle, Melissa stepped away and embarked on a holistic healing journey alongside her sister, learning firsthand that human health is directly related to our environment. She realized that it wasn’t the art form of stop-motion that was the problem, but the materials and methods that had become standard practice. Her mission is to reform the industry by replacing the toxic and wasteful practices with eco alternatives.

Evergreen Dry Forest

Juan Pablo Donoso Alliende

2025 · 17m

Walking between disenchantment and hope, we find Juan Carlos. A 47-year-old Cuban dedicated to collecting and reproducing a vanishing plant world. Following his acts of resistance, we witness the spread of vital alternatives in a wounded country and planet.

Hillswick: Beyond the Tides

Roman Willi

2025 · 43m

Hillswick: Beyond the Tides is an emotional and visually stunning documentary that celebrates the lives of Jan and Pete Bevington, whose 40 years of work at Hillswick Wildlife Sanctuary have transformed Shetland’s approach to wildlife conservation. Through the story of Otto, an otter rescued in 2023 and carefully rehabilitated over nine months, the film intertwines the Bevingtons’ incredible legacy with Shetland’s unparalleled natural beauty. With Jan’s passing in 2024, Hillswick: Beyond the Tides becomes not just a tribute to her, but a call to action to ensure the sanctuary, and the values it represents, continue to thrive in the years to come.

Mr. Appolinaire – Nature's Champion

Garth Kingwill

2026 · 5m

Ndohoudou Appolinaire has dedicated his life to caring for chimpanzees and gorillas who have been rescued from poachers and the illegal wildlife trade in Cameroon.

Snow Leopard Sisters

Andrew Lynch

2025 · 1h 33m · Documentary

In Nepal’s remote Dolpo region, two Indigenous women form an unlikely friendship to save one of the planet’s most mysterious and vulnerable wild cats: the snow leopard.

Constellations of the Sea

Addie Akina Knoll

2026 · 13m · Documentary

A 17-year-old filmmaker joins a Maldives-based research team to document the conservation of endangered whale sharks and the growing challenge of protecting a species at the center of a global tourism industry.

Entangled

Katherine Hee-Yeon Tae

2026 · 5m

A teenage girl uncovers the physical thread connecting her everyday life to the ocean. The film tracks the trajectory of a red balloon as it moves from her hand in a party supply store to its eventual destination: the stomach of a sea turtle. The film dismantles the "myth of away,” the convenient fiction that an object ceases to exist the moment it leaves our sight. Entangled reveals that our discarded things never truly vanish; they simply stop being ours, until the loop closes and we are forced to reel them back in.

VANA OLI (The Light of the Forest)

Sitara Arul Karthikeyan

2025 · 8m

Sitara, a young and passionate wildlife photographer comes across a stunning image of a firefly display. She sets out to capture a similar photograph herself. Her journey leads her to the hills of the western ghats but instead of magic she finds a fading world with fewer fireflies and a landscape dimmed by light pollution. As she speaks with locals and learns more about the delicate balance between nature and human impact her mission shifts. What began as a search for one perfect photo becomes a deeper journey of discovery, awareness, and conservation. In the end Sitara doesn’t just capture an image, she finds a story that needs to be shared.

Sevanik

Hayk Hovyan

24m

Sevanik is the last surviving dragon of the ancient Vishap lineage, born from an egg hidden deep within the waters of Lake Sevan. Raised and protected by his loyal companion Cloud, the little dragon begins a journey of discovery, learning about the world, friendship, and the fragile balance of nature. Together with his friends Sevanik explores the lake and its surroundings, encountering environmental challenges that threaten their home. Pollution, abandoned waste, damaged habitats, and changing climate conditions appear to the animals as strange and mysterious dangers disrupting the natural order.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Wes Anderson

2004 · 1h 59m · Adventure · Comedy · Drama

Renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou has sworn vengeance upon the rare shark that devoured a member of his crew. In addition to his regular team, he is joined on his boat by Ned, a man who believes Zissou to be his father, and Jane, a journalist pregnant by a married man. They travel the sea, all too often running into pirates and, perhaps more traumatically, various figures from Zissou's past, including his estranged wife, Eleanor.

The Tale of Silyan

Tamara Kotevska

2025 · 1h 20m · Documentary

Inspired by the folktale of the boy Siljan, who, after a quarrel with his father, turns into a stork and leaves home, the film is a story about the relationship between a farmer and a white stork.

The Velvet Queen

Marie Amiguet

2021 · 1h 32m · Documentary

High up on the Tibetan plateau. Amongst unexplored and inaccessible valleys lies one of the last sanctuaries of the wild world, where rare and undiscovered fauna lives. Vincent Munier, one of the world’s most renowned wildlife photographers takes the adventurer and novelist Sylvain Tesson (In the Forest of Siberia) with him on his latest mission. For several weeks, they’ll explore these valleys searching for unique animals and try to spot the snow leopard, one of the rarest and most difficult big cats to approach.

Wild London

Joe Loncraine

2026 · 58m · Documentary

After a life spent travelling the globe, the world’s most famous naturalist turns his attention closer to home to explore the wildlife of England’s iconic capital. Having lived in London for 75 years, Sir David has an intimate knowledge of the city’s natural history, and there's no better guide to introduce us to its most spectacular wildlife secrets. Captured over his centennial year, this personal and poignant film is a timely insight into how cities can become homes for wildlife as well as ourselves.

Eat More Trees

Arne Focketyn

2026 · 1h 20m · Documentary

Eat More Trees is a hopeful journey from the Amazon rain forest to the fields of Europe and America. The film explores how agroforestry can regenerate landscapes, restore biodiversity, and protect our climate.

From The Sky

Jo Davenport

27m

Hello World!

Anne–Lise Koehler

2019 · 1h 1m · Family · Animation

10 species of animals among so many others are born, live, and become accustomed to each other along beside a river... The long-eared owl takes flight to be born a second time and to tame the night. The great-crested grebe moves back and forth in its fishing territory, becoming invisible and dancing with the seaweed. The kingfisher in its journey in search of a place in the sun. The European pond turtle which drifts on the water and defies time. The Irish bat which sees the evening symphony with its ears. The European beaver, the builder of riverbanks which cannot resist the smell of trees. The fire salamander explores both sides of the world, this strange marvel. The great bittern, a reed bird that dreams of catching the moon. The pike which hopes to become huge in order to experience great adventures. And, last but not least, the emperor dragonfly, this fighter whose armor is forged by the sun. They all shout: "Hello world!"

Historjá – Stitches for Sapmí

Thomas Jackson

2022 · 1h 27m · Documentary

The large-scale textile artwork “Historjá” by Marakatt-Labba made a huge breakthrough when it was shown at documenta 14 in Kassel. The embroidery, depicting motifs from Sámi history, is also the starting point of Thomas Jackson’s documentary, which tells us about Sámi culture, whose history has been marked by a struggle against the majority population. The struggle has concerned the right to land and way of life, but also underlying this are two views of mankind and its relationship to nature. In Historjá – Stitches for Sapmí, historical events and mythological images are woven together with how climate change threatens contemporary reindeer herding and thus the existence of Sámi culture.

How to Live on Earth

Fredi Devas

2026 · 1h 36m · Documentary

A visionary feature documentary that explores our vital connection to nature and its role in our future. Presented by Benedict Cumberbatch, this ultimate 'how-to guide' features inspirational, cutting-edge stories and powerful cinematography from around the world to reveal how humans are learning to team up with nature to solve our biggest challenges.

Jane Goodall: The Hope

Kim Woodard

2020 · 1h 28m · Documentary · Adventure

The story of one remarkable woman who became a global icon in animal welfare and conservation who not only hoped for a better world, she achieved it! This sweeping documentary celebrates the vast legacy of Dr. Goodall’s four decades of advocacy work for chimpanzees and depicts the next chapter for generations to come.

My Neighbor Totoro

Hayao Miyazaki

1988 · 1h 26m · Fantasy · Animation · Family

Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Hayao Miyazaki

1984 · 1h 35m · Adventure · Animation · Fantasy

After a global war, the seaside kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind remains one of the last strongholds on Earth untouched by a poisonous jungle and the powerful insects that guard it. Led by the courageous Princess Nausicaä, the people of the Valley engage in an epic struggle to restore the bond between humanity and Earth.

Nuisance Bear

Gabriela Osio Vanden

2026 · 1h 30m · Documentary

A polar bear is forced to navigate a human world of tourists, wildlife officers, and hunters as its ancient migration collides with modern life. When a sacred predator is branded a nuisance, it becomes unclear who truly belongs in this shared landscape.

Pride of Samburu

Vanessa Serrao Hiemenz

50m

For the Samburu warriors of northern Kenya, hunting a lion was once a sign of bravery. But when one warrior realized that only 11 lions remained on their land, he shifted from fighting against the lions to becoming their fiercest defender. Pride of Samburu tells the story of Samburu Elder and National Geographic Explorer Jeneria Lekilelei, who dedicates his life to building coexistence between his Samburu community and the lions of Northern Kenya.

Ripple of We

Soonbum Kwon

2026 · 4m

The Ripple of We follows a teenager growing up on Jeju Island whose connection to the ocean leads him to confront marine pollution firsthand. By diving beneath the surface and taking action with his friends, he discovers how one person’s concern can grow into collective action—and how even the smallest ripple can become we.

The Animal Kingdom

Thomas Cailley

2023 · 2h 7m · Adventure · Drama · Science Fiction

In a world hit by a wave of mutations transforming humans into animals, François does everything he can to save his wife. As some of the creatures disappear into a nearby forest, he and their son Émile embark on a quest that will change their lives forever.

Whispers in the Woods

Vincent Munier

2025 · 1h 39m · Documentary

In the heart of the tranquil Vosges forests, where lynxes, bears and deer roam freely, Vincent Munier accompanies his father on his expeditions. He not only seeks to capture the visual wonders of this forest kingdom, but also aims to make its sounds audible. Every whisper of the forest is a reminder of the knowledge of nature that his father once imbued in him – knowledge that Vincent now passes on to his own son. Vincent Munier combines breathtaking footage of nature and its sounds to create a fairytale-like cinematic experience that slows time down.

Wildwood

Travis Knight

2h 12m