Hailing from the remote village of Alert Bay, British Columbia snowboarder Spencer O’Brien dedicated her life to becoming a world champion. But, being driven to win came at a cost. Snowboarding at the elite level was taking Spencer further from her Indigenous heritage than she realized. Precious Leader Woman tells Spencer’s story from childhood to the world stage, to coming full circle to embrace her identity as she pushes forward bringing her heart and soul to her next challenge, the backcountry.

We think of hermits as reclusive. That’s not Ken Smith. He’s lived off-the-grid for more than 40 years, in a wood cabin on Loch Treig in the Scottish Highlands, a 27 mile walk to the nearest postbox. But he’s a garrulous, personable chap if you find your way to his hearth, as filmmaker Lizzie MacKenzie did some years ago. Now in his 80s, Ken chats happily about his lifestyle (“If you want to get away from civilization, you need to learn to fish”), his love of nature, and the circumstances which brought him to this place. Beaten up by a gang of youths at 26, Ken was in a coma for several weeks.

To his doctors’ surprise, he relearned to walk, talk, and write, but especially to walk. He explored the Canadian wilderness solo for two years. When he returned home, it wasn’t there; his parents had passed.

It may be one part eco-documentary, but the emotional subtext is the rapport between this cheerful old man—a wonderful photographer incidentally—and young Lizzie, who befriends him and films him as his health begins to fail and hard choices are faced.

The Sava River is a liquid connection between 4 countries and countless ecosystems. She carves canyons, fertilizes fields, creates playgrounds, nesting grounds and deep pools. People drink her water, write poems about her, harness her energy, and fight over her. Float alongside four mischievous kayakers as they paddle across Slovenia sampling water, surveying birds and getting to know the Sava’s wild past, dark history, colorful present and uncertain future, due to hydro dams.

Geographies of Solitude is an immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, guided by naturalist and environmentalist Zoe Lucas who has lived over 40 years on this remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Shot on 16mm and created using a scope of innovative eco-friendly filmmaking techniques, this feature-length experimental documentary is a playful and reverent collaboration with the natural world. Zoe leads us among wild horses, seals and bugs, through peaks, valleys, roots, sands, weathers, seasons and stars. The intangible is evoked with hidden sounds and vanishing light. Much like a field book, the film tracks its protagonist's labor to collect, clean and document marine litter that persistently washes up on the island shores.