SAN FRANCISCO, CA
We’re thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Nature Connection Pitch!
From hundreds of submissions, these projects rose to the top for their powerful storytelling, cinematic vision, and deep exploration of how people and communities are reconnecting with the natural world. Spanning continents, cultures, and lived experiences, these short documentaries illuminate the ways nature can heal, restore identity, and inspire collective action, particularly through voices and communities historically excluded from access to land and the outdoors.
These are stories of resilience, cultural memory, and belonging. Together, they reflect a growing movement to reclaim our relationship with nature.
Meet the 2026 Nature Connection Pitch finalists
This film follows 87-year-old chinampera Doña Susana and scientist Diana Mendoza as they work to protect Xochimilco. Blending ancestral farming practices, axolotl conservation, and cultural resilience, their story is a testament to intergenerational knowledge and environmental stewardship.
Directed by Isabela Zawistowska; Produced by Chamberlain Staub
After losing his leg, Rapa Nui fisherman José Teao finds healing and renewed strength in the ocean. Te Mana o Teao follows his journey of resilience and spiritual transformation, where the sea becomes a source of purpose, power, and connection.
Co-directed by Mahai Soler and Martín Kingman; Produced by María José Calderón
The mountain Sing Peak was named in 1899 after Tie Sing, a Chinese chef who cooked for early mapmakers and founders of the National Park Service. Each year, a community of Asian Americans treks off-trail to reach its summit. This film explores the history, erasure, and reclamation behind that journey, and asks why it matters today.
Directed by Kristy Hyunsoo Choi
A DACA recipient finds identity and belonging through snowsports in the United States. As he works to expand outdoor access for immigrant and BIPOC communities, he sets his sights on summiting and snowboarding an 18,000-foot active volcano in Mexico.
Co-Directed by Micah Dudash; featuring Javier Pineda
A group of Black farmers are drawn to Croom Road to heal land depleted by tobacco farming and the legacy of chattel slavery. Grounded in cooperative economics and ancestral land stewardship practices, they are cultivating both soil and sovereignty.
Directed and Produced by Jamaica Kalika
About The Redford Center
Co-founded in 2005 by activists and filmmakers Robert Redford and James Redford, The Redford Center is a nonprofit that advances environmental solutions through the power of stories that move. As one of the only US-based nonprofits solely dedicated to environmental impact filmmaking, The Redford Center develops and invests in projects that foster action and strengthen the reach of the grassroots efforts powering the environmental movement. Over the years, The Redford Center has produced three award-winning feature documentaries and more than 40 short films, supported over 400 film and media projects with grants and other services, inspired the creation of 550 student films, and disbursed more than $32 million to environmental films, amplifying change-making solutions to millions of people worldwide. Learn more at www.redfordcenter.org.