From top left, Honorable Mention winners (not including groups below) are Izabella Itzia Anguiano-Jacobs for ‘Hymns of a Tiny World’ (California), Anavadya M S for ‘Thaniye (Alone)’ (India), Angie Chay-Arana of ‘If I Could Hear the Whales Sing (Connecticut), and Aayas Dhoj Joshi for ‘Adrift: Forgiving the Flood (North Carolina). From bottom left, Mila Mankoč Šolar for ‘Catharsis’ (Slovenia), Bradley Hogan for ‘Minara’ (Australia and Bangladesh), and Summit Olson for ‘Is It Worth It?’ (Minnesota).
By Lisa Biehle Files
The annual One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest Global Awards Celebration is gearing up to take place at 10 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 21, both in person at the Davis Theater, 4614 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, Illinois, and online virtually anywhere in the world. Featuring the top 10 winning films from among almost 400 submissions, this event is the third with global reach since the contest started 13 years ago.
But that’s not all—this year’s celebration also shines a spotlight on our Honorable Mention filmmakers. Audiences will enjoy a special preview reel featuring eight additional films that impressed our judges with their creativity and passion. Some of these talented filmmakers will even be in Chicago on stage to receive their awards alongside our top winners (which we wrote about last month).
The celebration continues with an exclusive virtual screening of all eight Honorable Mention films on Saturday, Sept. 27. This is a chance to see these stories in their entirety and support these young filmmakers. Tickets are free, but registration is required to receive the link. For the full experience, reserve tickets for both Sunday, Sept. 21 and Saturday, Sept. 27.
Learn more about Honorable Mention winning films below.
A scene from Thaniye (Alone) by Anavadya M S from India
Anavadya M S
THANIYE (ALONE) (5.5 min)
Anavadya M S
Post Grad Level
Animation
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology
Bengaluru, India
In “Thaniye (Alone),” a mother and baby elephant live happily in an idyllic natural setting until invasive plants kill most of their food. The mother elephant is forced to seek food growing on a farm but winds up being fatally injured, leaving her baby elephant to fend for herself.
An innocent, childlike voice narrates. This along with dramatic music combine to effectively build emotion.
“As a filmmaker, I believe in the power of storytelling to inspire change,” writes Anavadya in her submission. “My film ‘Thaniye (Alone)’ highlights the impact of human-animal conflict and the urgent need for coexistence. Through animation, I aim to evoke empathy and spark conversations about environmental conservation.”
Izabella Itzia Anguiano-Jacobs
HYMNS OF A TINY WORLD:
THE BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND (5 min)
Izabella Itzia Anguiano-Jacobs
Post Grad Level
Animation
California Institute for the Arts, California
“Hymns of a Tiny World: The Birds of New Zealand” is a celebration of the variety of birds in this island nation. Izabella’s pastel drawings of birds in motion are in a wide range of beautiful colors. We see them from dawn to dusk, busy in their work: gathering food, making nests, and feeding their young. The soundtrack contrasts horn music welcoming the day with clarinet music at night and a layer of gentle birdsong throughout.
Overall, the film is a soothing, peaceful homage to the natural world. Because of recent laws put into place, New Zealand is helping people co-exist peacefully with wildlife and the natural world.
MINARA (8 min)
Bradley Hogan (Director and Writer), Saraid Hounihan, Ruby Alexander, Sadman Islam, Heidi Fiddler, Mohammad Sheikh
University Level
Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
The team of student filmmakers from Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia, and Daffodil International University in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Minara Begum
In the film “Minara,” climate refugee Minara Begum tells her account of the floods that destroyed her ancestral home and forced her into the slums of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. If that wasn’t tragic enough, she also details her subsequent attack at the hands of her own government. Instead of helping those living in the slums, the government bulldozed the homes of 1,400 people causing these climate refugees to scatter. While living in tents on the streets, they were then beaten by the authorities.
“Minara” tells the story of just one woman’s experience of displacement and her difficulty finding a new home. Rising sea levels and increases in catastrophic flooding make this story more and more common.
This film was a collaboration among four students from Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia, and two students from Daffodil International University in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Aayas Dhoj Joshi
ADRIFT: FORGIVING THE FLOOD (6 min)
Aayas Dhoj Joshi
University Level
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
In “Adrift: Forgiving the Flood,” Aayas Dhoj Joshi focuses his lens on Blair Belt-Clark, who tells the story of the day her tiny house was pulled into the Cane River after Hurricane Helene swept through Burnsville, North Carolina. Blair and her husband Jason had been building their tiny house for 4-1/2 years with their entire savings.
“The ocean picked itself up and dropped itself here in the mountains,” says Blair. “The flood happened really fast. Families were taken in the middle of the night.” Blair tries to come to terms with the consequences and impact of this catastrophic flash flood from 2024. Through one person’s story, filmmaker Aayas shows the increasingly devastating impacts of flash floods.
Angie Chay-Arana
IF I COULD HEAR THE WHALES SING (6.5 min)
Angie Chay-Arana
University Level
University of Connecticut, Connecticut
“If I Could Hear the Whales Sing,” is a poetic celebration of nature via both documentary and animation, as well as a manifesto, encouraging action. Angie presents the glory of nature and then talks about its degradation from coral bleaching, habitat loss, and oil spills.
She explains in her submission: “This film is my way of encouraging others, especially young people like me, to see the Earth not as a burden to fix, but as a gift worth protecting. I hope my film inspires reflection, compassion, and above all, action!”
Summit filming in Wyoming
Summit Olson
IS IT WORTH IT? (7.5 min)
Summit Olson
High School Level
Southwest High School, Minnesota
Summit starts out “Is It Worth It?” with short clips of video from news stories and urban scenes. These clips build to a crescendo in which the filmmaker herself reaches a moment of dread with panic breathing.
The film cuts to serene photos of mountains and wildlife from Summit’s first trip to the Teton Range in western Wyoming. She expresses her personal fears and frustrations. “I’m scared for my future. I’m scared for the land that I exist on. . . I’m scared for the animals that I love. I’m scared for the rivers, the lakes, and the oceans. I’m scared for the Earth. . . .” This beautiful, emotional film reveals the thoughts of a young person trying to find hope amidst today’s climate crisis.
Mila Mankoč Šolar
CATHARSIS (4 min)
Mila Mankoč Šolar
High School Level
Ledina High School, Slovenia
“Catharsis” artfully shows the relationship between two women, one representing Mother Earth and the other Humanity. A plaintive classical guitar strums under poetic, narrated lines of lament: Mother Earth birthed and nurtured us, and yet we pillaged her.
“In this short movie I wanted to explore the themes of regret,” Mila wrote in her submission. “The black and white sequences emphasize the mourning and the remorse one feels or perhaps should feel. The regret of looking the other way, the regret of not ensuring a half decent future for those who will come after. The movie is a sort of letter to Earth. Not so much an apology but a reflection or a realization of past actions that led us to this point.”
Students from the Chameleon Workshop in Belgium
TRASH (4.5 min)
Baptiste Baguet, Lino Brunin, Sacha Brunin, Arthur Delplancq, Youri Higuet, Thiago Labancz, Flore Lamand, Raphael Lete, and Tom Martin
Middle School Level
Stop Motion Animation
Chameleon Workshop, Belgium
The protagonist in “Trash”
In “Trash,” a blue claymation creature mindlessly throws away his trash into one can while he watches someone outside carefully sort trash into separate bins for recycling and compost. He shrugs off the experience and continues on with his normal day.
However, there’s something strange happening in his mixed-use garbage bin. An eerie glow seems to suck the main character inside, where he discovers separate cities made of glass, paper and plastic. Soon, the objects from one city get mixed into another, and chaos ensues.
Instructor Madame Nadège Herrygers led the nine middle school students who created this stop-motion animated film in what she calls the Chameleon Workshop.
One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest is grateful to the 33 leaders in film and/or environmental experts who served on our jury, narrowing down the strongest films from almost 400 submissions. Youth leaders from Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots program also weighed in. Learn more about the jury here.