10 Inspiring Short Documentaries Tackling Climate Change and Social Justice

Action is the antidote to despair. 

When it comes to climate change, it is a tad difficult to be upbeat about ongoing and impending doom for all of humanity, which led us to reconsider how we see inspiration. It was a short process, because it was easy to see once we started that anger, love, and despair are all robust sources of inspiration. The films below, grim as some might be, are all exhortative. They variously plead and demand action.

What more could one ask for in seeking inspiration?

On the other hand, the beautiful thing about social work and justice is its inherent optimism, its origin in compassion and empathy. In films on social justice, bleak conditions often come with the possibilities of change prominently attached. We found this truest in the very first film listed below, I’M NOT AN ACTIVIST, a testament to the power of collective effort. And thus, however things go, we begin with optimism. 

Note: The films below are arranged in no particular order (not even alphabetical!). However, while selecting them, our criteria was access. As a result, only those films which were freely available have been listed.

I’M NOT AN ACTIVIST (2023) dir. Dan Chen

This vibrant film documents the grassroots organization of Asian-Americans in New York as Asian-Americans all over the US have increasingly become targets of hate crimes. The result is Dragon Combat Club, a volunteer run group, formed to train people of the community in self-defense. However, it goes further and into social work territory, as its volunteers look out for the elderly and other people in need of help at the Brooklyn subway station. The documentary is wonderfully watchable. There is style, there is energy, and there is a relentless optimism it foregrounds that born of collectively taking up the mantle and serving your community that has often been vulnerable. The original score is a bonus.

East Wells: Bimini’s Last Hope (2018) dir. Philippa Ehrlich

Running a little under six minutes, East Wells: Bimini’s Last Hope carefully juxtaposes a home, and the anger of its inhabitants. It is an anger engendered by the deep love that a people have for their land, its trees, its animals. It is a mix that builds into a potent call to action to save East Bimini’s mangroves and sand flats from being turned into island estates after North Bimini has already fallen into the trap of luxury resorts and casinos. 

The water’s occasional murkiness makes it real, more real than the sweeping vistas in overhead shots. It makes what can be so conveniently tossed into the pile of one-week vacation spots feel like home. Not always pristine, not always picturesque, not perfectly tidy. Just home: a little chaotic, thoroughly lived, and respectfully cared for. 

Hidden (2020) dir. Jafar Panahi

In pursuit of a woman with a soprano voice for theatre-producer Shabnam Yousefi’s project, Jafar Panahi and daughter Solmaz Panahi discover a voice that transcends image. 

Indeed, you are not likely to be prepared for the power of the voice of the woman hidden behind the curtain imposed on her being. It moves you and flows through your bones, a river of emotion; the camera, meanwhile, is forcibly neutral—or nearly so. The choked movement it claims for itself is an act of resistance and a move towards freedom. 

Recycled Life (2006) dir. Leslie Iwerks

A documentary showcasing the anthropocene’s effect on both people and the land of Guatemala City, Recycled Life trains its lens on a 40-acre toxic landfill, the largest in Central America. Poverty and wasteland, unsurprisingly, have been designed to go together. Its resident workers meanwhile prefer not to see a world outside its boundaries while creating an ecosystem of their own that can sustain laughter and music. They find the means to live within these dumps. The wry adage becomes bleak reality. A football, a coat, a mattress, a toy. Sometimes, even a kitten.

The Divided Trail: A Native American Odyssey (1978) dir. Jerry Aronson 

Part 1

Part 2

Nominated for the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Short Film, Jerry Aronson’s  film is about the first Chicago Indian Village, the product of the suffering and mobilization of Indigenous Americans in the 70s. Shot over eight years, it follows the lives of two members of the Chippewa tribe of Wisconsin, Betty Chosa Jack and Michael Chosa, and Carol Warrington, of the Mamaceqtaw people, as they agitate against forced relocation, violation of treaties, terrible housing, and every other injustice shoved upon them and their people by the government.  

By 1978, Betty became an alcoholics counsellor, Michael’s efforts led to an education and martial arts training program for indigenous men, and Carol became a social worker. These are not so much neat little bow-tied endings as testaments to the power of organized action in the face of historical and continued oppression. 

Climate Change (2019) dir. Philip Kapadia

A tightly edited, highly charged short docu, the tersely titled film does not beat about the bush where our future is concerned. On the contrary, it throws facts, figures, images, and an emotive score in our faces with the taut impatience of someone who has had enough of politeness. There is simply no more time for rhetorical pledges that are quietly (or loudly, in some cases) dropped as soon as it is convenient. It demands we, who have little individual political sway, use every tool we have recourse to to push our politicians to do the sensible thing. 

Pangolins (2016) 

A concise documentary about the rescue of endangered pangolins, at risk due to illegal trade, Pangolins is produced by Save Vietnam’s Wildlife and Five Films, and narrated by comedian Sarah Millican. The rescue initiative is by no means small; sometimes it is dangerous, and likely to be a ceaseless, uphill task. But the end result is one of hope. 

NatureNow (2019) dir. Tom Mustill

Featuring Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot, this documentary is much like Kapadia’s film in its tone of unambiguous urgency. Instead of the tired and ineffective cliche that planting trees will save us, the documentary offers the proper version: leave the fossil fuels in the ground, leave the natural flora alone. 

We the Power (2021) dir. David Garrett Byars 

A film so cheerful it calls back to the joy of early film, whether with its music or its people. We the Power finds its energy, both literal and figurative, within the community. An initiative to produce energy locally and sustainably, there is a heart warming sense of anarchy and mischief that is juxtaposed with archival footage from Chernobyl. Residents speak of the immediate aftermath, the fear and the sleeplessness. It is no wonder then that the people affected are the people taking up the mantle to effect the kind of change that corporations and political leaders usually prefer to hinder. 

The Art of Protest (2020) dir. Colin M. Day

A big, bold, stylish, humorous documentary that takes contemporary politics by the collar while invoking the long history of resistance and resistance art, The Art of Protest should be mandatory viewing for anyone who needs to know (and despairs about) what any of us can do about injustices big and small. So, everyone. 

Besides, in the era of AI being trotted out as the greatest revolution in the history of art, the film is a gut punch of a reminder that art is the business of living beings who feel and rage and delight. It pulls back the curtain on resistance art as finished project and shows the mischief that laces through the activism. This, in fact, might be the foundational idea—to laugh and lighten the gravity of the threat. Sometimes it is that bad, but sometimes it is a hot air balloon that just needs the light poke of a happy needle.  

HONORARY MENTION: “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.” (2019) dir. @thelastpeanut 

A stunning piece of work running under three minutes, this glimpse into the Hong Kong anti-extradition protests of 2019 set to Louis Armstrong’s classic leaves your faculties alight with terror, grief, and determination. It is the stuff of dystopian films, but so terribly real that there are no triumphant heroes to celebrate their win, and all the more the urgent need to do something. 

Even something as humble as taking care of each other while we f**k s**t up.