Shorts Program 4

In 2008, a company called Green Diamond Resource Company began clear-cutting redwood trees in Northern California’s McKay Tract, a lush and shadowy forest that was home to towering trees, tall ferns and wildlife. A group of activists responded by moving into the trees, setting up their lives in tarp structures in the lofty canopies among the trill of birdsong and the patter of rainfall. Among Giants focuses on one of the activists, Farmer, who has been living in the trees for three years and etches out a solitary and soggy existence based on faith and resistance.

Julio Solis grew up near Magdalena Bay in Baja, Mexico, where turtles were plentiful. As he got older, he watched their population decrease from over harvesting, so he dedicated himself to conservation of the reptiles. This short film by Allie Bombach and Brenda Barrera is part of a series and profiles people who are doing the best they can to change the world.

James Prosek is much like an artist in the tradition of nineteenth-century naturalists who cataloged the world as they discovered it. The difference is that Prosek paints creatures that are vanishing and hopes that by helping audiences to “know” these threatened creatures, he will improve their chances for survival. And so he quests after some 40 different Atlantic fish species — swordfish off Newfoundland, giant groupers in the Bahamas, a 900-pound black marlin in the Cape Verde Islands — to capture them exactly as they appear alive in the wild.

There are few things more poignant than to see strong brave men and women — warriors, all — reduced by the ravages of combat to brokenness: brokenness not just of the body, but also of the soul. Yet there is a tremendous redemptive power in witnessing those same tragically weakened and humbled men overcoming such harsh adversity to regain their honor, confidence and self-esteem. When such a story plays out against the timeless backdrop of Montana riverscapes and the meditative focus of flyfishing, it becomes all the more moving.