Film Spotlight: Interview with Dan Protess, Director of From Rails to Trails

What happens when the tracks that once divided us start bringing us together?

From Rails to Trails explore how everyday spaces can become catalysts for environmental and social change.

One Earth (OE): Rails to Trails shows how old infrastructure can become new community spaces. What drew you to this story?

Dan Protess(DP): I was approached by Peter Harnik a few years ago about the idea of making a documentary—Peter is the co-founder of the Rails to Trails Conservancy and the author of a book about the history of the movement to transform abandoned railroads into trails. What he did not know when he brought the idea to me is that I am a daily rail-trail user. I run every day on the 606, which is near my home, and so I am well aware of what an asset rail-trails can be for our communities. But before committing to the project, I had to sit down with Peter’s book and get a sense of whether there was an engaging story there. I realized that these trails all owe their existence to hard-fought political battles over the past 50 years. And of course, battles and conflicts often make for good stories. 

OE: How do trails help reconnect people with nature and each other?

DP: One of my favorite stories in the film is about May Watts, a naturalist from suburban Chicago who sparked the entire movement back in the early 1960s. She had traveled to England and was struck by the ancient footpaths there—the way they were open to everyone, young and old, rich and poor. She came home and saw a long-abandoned rail corridor cutting through the sprawl west of Chicago, and realized that the native prairie plants were actually thriving there, undisturbed. Her insight was simple but radical: you shouldn't have to travel to get to nature—nature could be right outside your door. We illustrated the same idea with a story in Brownsville, Texas, where the community fought against a proposed toll road, and insisted on building a trail there instead.  One of the organizers rode her bike along the finished trail and described hearing the birds, seeing the water, watching kids play, and contrasted it with a toll road, where she said, "you'd be driving fast and you'd miss all of that."

OE: What role can green infrastructure play in building healthier communities?

DP: The story that really drove this home for me was Atlanta's Beltline—a 22-mile trail built on an old railroad loop encircling the city. It was the brainchild of a graduate student named Ryan Gravel, who wanted to make Atlantans less dependent on cars. His vision was to connect people to housing, retail, and parks, which they could access on foot, on a bicycle, or on transit. Brownsville is one of the most economically challenged cities in Texas, with diabetes rates among the highest in the country, and building a trail there instead of a toll road was a genuine public health intervention for a community that needed it. Pete Buttigieg, who we interviewed for the film, described the movement as "the beginning of a course correction"—but also noted that there's still a long way to go. That tension is something I find really compelling: 26,000 miles of rail-trails is an extraordinary achievement, and yet it barely scratches the surface of what's possible.

Film Spotlight: Interview with Sarah Keo, Co-Director of Chasing Time

Co-Directors of Chasing Time (pictured above) are Sarah Keo and Jeff Orlowski

Chasing Time captures the urgency behind the science, following communities and experts racing against the clock to protect a livable future. 

One Earth (OE): Your film deals with the urgency of the climate crisis. Why is this story particularly important now?

Sarah Keo (SK): When Chasing Ice was first released, James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey set out to prove that climate change was real through visual evidence of a changing planet. Fifteen years later, we made Chasing Time not to prove that climate change exists, but to confront how urgently we need to act.

As James says at the beginning of the film, climate change is no longer distant or abstract. It’s already shaping people’s lives, decisions, and futures in very real ways.

Chasing Time is less about sounding the alarm and more about asking what we do with the time we still have. It’s about the human side of that equation: how we process urgency, how we show up for one another, and how we move from awareness to meaningful action.

OE: What did you learn about the pace of environmental change while making the film?

SK: The first time we saw the time-lapse sequences come together, we were struck by just how drastic the changes to these landscapes were. Chasing Ice captured three years of photography, while Chasing Time spans over fifteen years. Watching these majestic glaciers—these living, breathing creatures—disappear over that timeframe was deeply unsettling.

We wanted to elevate this unprecedented visual record to help people understand that glacier melt is not only accelerating, but in many cases happening faster than previously predicted.

Although the film focuses on Iceland, what’s happening there is a microcosm of a global system. Our ecosystems are deeply interconnected. Glacial melt contributes to sea-level rise and ocean warming, which intensifies extreme weather events, leading to flooding, drought, and wildfires.

The climate crisis isn’t isolated to one place. It’s already unfolding in all of our backyards. And responding to it will require a level of collective awareness and action that matches that scale.

OE: What gives you hope that humanity can still act in time?

SK: During the making of the film, one of our Executive Producers, Linda Cornfield, shared a piece of advice that stayed with us: “This work isn’t a sprint, nor a marathon. It’s a relay race. We each run our leg and pass the baton.”

That idea became a guiding principle for us. One of the core themes of Chasing Time is mentorship—not only between James and Jeff on screen, but behind the camera as well. That exchange of knowledge and perspective shaped how we think about storytelling and impact change into the world.

We each inherit a body of knowledge, experience, and urgency from those who came before us. We have a responsibility to carry that forward and to invest in the next generation of climate leaders, storytellers, and advocates who will continue this work long after us.

Real change doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens when people share resources, support one another, and bring different perspectives together in pursuit of a common goal. That kind of intergenerational collaboration is what gives me hope—that we’re not starting from scratch, but building on a collective effort that continues to grow and evolve to build toward a better future.

Book your tickets for the April 24th Screening of Chasing Time today!