Wild & Scenic Film Festival 2012

In the artificial landscape that is Los Angeles, where even palm trees are imported, nothing epitomizes man's short-sighted efforts to reshape the face of the earth more than the LA River: modified beyond recognition, its flow tapped before it even reached the surface, the river was used, abused and essentially forgotten. But when an unassuming boater insists on seeing it as a river again, a local controversy takes on national dimensions, and the once-derided eyesore turns into a source of hope for the City of Dreams. 'Rock the Boat' is a fun, high-energy and ultimately moving film that tells this every-man's adventure and looks at the price nature has to pay for our urban lifestyle.

If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children. The U.S. Government knew this in the 19th century when it forced Native American children into government boarding schools. Today, volunteers build schools in traditional societies around the world, convinced that school is the only way to a ‘better’ life for indigenous children. But is this true? What really happens when we replace a traditional culture’s way of learning and understanding the world with our own? Beautifully shot on location in the Buddhist culture of Ladakh, SCHOOLING THE WORLD takes a challenging, sometimes funny, ultimately deeply disturbing look at the effects of modern education on the world’s last sustainable indigenous cultures. Featuring Wade Davis, Vandana Shiva, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Manish Jain, and Dolma Tsering.