Three Canadian documentaries will make their world premiere at the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival.

The 25th edition of the fest will run from Oct. 15 to 20 at Toronto’s Paradise Theatre.

The world premieres include Birdman of Cooper Island, from directors Kevin and Michael McMahon. The Primitive Entertainment-produced film focuses on George Divoky, whose documentation of an Alaskan black guillemot colony on shrinking sea ice is considered one of the world’s first glimpses of climate change.

Then there’s Velcrow Ripper and Nova Ami’s Incandescence from Transparent Films and National Film Board of Canada, which focuses on the growing threat of wildfires.

Lastly, Jen Muranetz’s Fairy Creek (Understory Films) documents the protests against old-growth logging on Vancouver Island, which is considered one of the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. It will be distributed by Cinema Politica.

The festival will open with Toronto premiere of directors Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan’s documentary Made in Ethiopia (Gobez Media, Hard Truth Films), co-produced by Ethiopian-Canadian filmmaker Tamara Mariam Dawit, about the small-scale Ethiopian farming town of Dukem.

Closing out the festival is the national premiere of Canadian filmmakers Sarah Sharkey Pearce and Simon Schneider’s Resident Orca (pictured). The Everyday Films production follows a group trying to free Tokitae or Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, the last of the southern resident killer whales in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium. Off the Fence has worldwide rights to the film, which will be screened on Crave following its festival run.

Also screening is the Canada/Philippines/U.S. feature Asog (Beb Bingo Entertainment) from Vancouver-based Filipino-Chinese-Canadian Seán Devlin. The doc follows a non-binary Filipino comedian who goes on a road trip to a drag pageant after losing their job hosting a local TV show after a typhoon destroyed the studio.

Ryan Dickie’s Tea Creek (Winterhawk Studios, Boreal Wolf Productions) will make its Ontario premiere at Planet in Focus. The film chronicles the titular Indigenous-led food sovereignty and trades training initiative. The film starts streaming on CBC Gem on Oct. 11 and will be broadcast on CBC TV next year.

The lineup also includes Niobe Thompson’s Hunt for the Oldest DNA (Handful of Films, Tangled Bank Studios), distributed by PBS and Kanopy. The doc focuses on Danish evolutionary geneticist Eske Willerslev’s work sequencing DNA fragments buried in Greenland’s permafrost.

Rounding out the list is Julien Elie’s La Guardia Blanca, produced by Metafilms. The doc explores the effects of unrestrained mining on rural towns in Mexico.

Image courtesy of Crave