Environmental Films

Amy Goodman’s Good Example

A documentary that resonates, why the press needs to pay more attention to Truth Social madness, and an impressive investigation from the Post and Courier.

On November 12, 1991, Amy Goodman, an investigative journalist who was then a producer at WBAI Radio, and Allan Nairn, a correspondent for The New Yorker, were in East Timor covering the memorial of a man killed by the Indonesian army, when soldiers opened fire on the mourners, killing at least two hundred and seventy East Timorese. Goodman and Nairn were violently beaten. Nairn’s skull was fractured.

By the time of the massacre, American media had spent sixteen years largely ignoring Indonesia’s brutal occupation of East Timor, even though the United States government had financed, trained, and armed the Indonesian army. “Most Americans never heard of this pure hell on earth,” Goodman says in a new documentary about her life and career, Steal This Story, Please! 05-08-26

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In ‘Out of Plain Sight,’ a Toxic Threat Off California’s Coast Comes Into View

Environmental reporter Rosanna Xia in the documentary “Out of Plain Sight.”
(L.A. Times Studios)

“Forever chemicals” don’t die — they just regroup. Only instead of regrouping in hell, as that old Marines saying goes, it’s in the oceans, where such compounds were dumped for decades.

For years, Times environmental reporter and Pulitzer finalist Rosanna Xia has been covering the legacy of forever chemical DDT, a pesticide once applied to humans as innocuously as hairspray and yardhose water. In 2020 she broke the story that barrels of DDT’s toxic waste, last sent to the ocean floor decades ago by its biggest manufacturer, Montrose, were closer to Southern California’s shores than previously thought. Her ongoing investigative work is now the subject of a documentary, “Out of Plain Sight,” which Xia co-directed with Daniel Straub. (Full disclosure: It was produced by L.A. Times Studios, an affiliate company.)

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Listers

Two brothers learn about competitive birdwatching by becoming birdwatchers—spending a year living in a used minivan, traveling the country to compete in a ‘Big Year’. Free on Youtube

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes

In 1956, 23-year-old biologist Anne Innis Dagg made a solo journey to South Africa to study giraffes in the wild. In “The Woman Who Loves Giraffes”, Anne (now 86) retraces her steps, and with letters and stunning, original 16mm film footage, offers an intimate window into her life as a young woman, juxtaposed with a first hand look at the devastating reality that giraffes are facing today. Click here to watch

The Hidden Life of Trees

Based on the bestselling book, forester Peter Wohlleben shows us how trees communicate with each other and the world in this enlightening documentary. Click here to watch.