World Environment Day 2023: Six documentaries to watch on June 5

Actor and a UN Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio with Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain in a still from the documentary 'Before The Flood' (2016), available on Disney+ Hotstar.

Indian documentary The Elephant Whisperers that won us the Best Documentary Short Film at the recent 95th Academy Awards, helped showcase the bond between a baby elephant and an Adivasi couple in Tamil Nadu who are entrusted with its care, with focus on animal and environment conservation. The Oscar-nominated documentary feature All That Breathes showed two brothers tending to injured black kites in Delhi. In recent years, many critically-acclaimed documentaries such as Seaspiracy (2021), My Octopus Teacher (2020), Extinction: The Fact (2020), and Catching the Sun (2015), among others, have helped raise awareness about many issues plaguing our nature and environment.

Here are six insightful documentaries that are a must-watch if you want to understand some of the issues plaguing the world at the moment and will put life on Earth at peril:

Earthlings (2005) on YouTube

Academy-Award winning actor Joaquin Phoenix is the narrator of American documentary Earthlings, that focusses on the industry standard for use of animals bred as pets, for clothing, entertainment, food and research. Director and writer Shaun Monson took six years to make the one-and-a-half-hour-long documentary which had its premiere at the Archivist Film Festival in 2005 and went on to win a number of awards including the Best Documentary Film at the San Diego Film Festival as well as the Humanitarian award to the actor for his involvement in the film. With footage obtained from hidden cameras, Monson covered pet stores, animal testing and factory farms to expose the atrocities committed on animals.

The Islands and The Whales (2016) on Vimeo and GooglePlay

Environmental changes are threatening the ways we have lived our lives and it does not get more apparent than in this American documentary made by director Mike Day. Recipient of several awards including the Best Documentary — World Cinema at Phoenix Film Festival (2017), the one-hour, 21-minute-long documentary takes a look at the whale hunters of the Faroe Islands in North Atlantic, who have been hunting whales and seabirds for generations. With oceans getting more and more polluted, they are now faced with the repercussions of consuming fish that may contain mercury among other toxic elements.

The E-Waste Tragedy (2014) on Vimeo

Writer and director Cosima Dannoritzer wastes no time in plunging right into the toxic problem of recycling e-waste. The investigation of the problem begins from countries in Europe, and then takes the viewers To Asia, the US and then to Agbogbloshie in Africa, known to be one of the largest electronics waste cemeteries in the world. The director draws your attention with some scary statistics — informing that nearly 75 per cent of 50 million tonnes of e-waste is shipped and dumped illegally in the developing-world countries.

Before The Flood (2016) on Disney+ Hotstar

Actor and a United Nations Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio produced, hosted and narrated this documentary on climate change. The one-and-a-half-hour-long documentary made in association with National Geographic sees DiCaprio meeting several world leaders and thinkers including Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Pope Francis and John Kerry, and closer home, with Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain, to discuss the impact of rising sea levels and deforestation among other situations impacting global warming. Directed by Fisher Stevens, the documentary premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016 before its theatrical release.

Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story (2014) on Vimeo

One of the most entertaining documentaries made on food wastage, Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story left the Variety magazine critic highly impressed, who wrote that it ‘will leave audiences gobsmacked’. Indeed, the winner of several awards including Best Documentary at Leo Awards, People’s Choice Award at Calgary International Film Festival and Best Canadian Feature at Planet in Focus among others, this 74-minute-long production by director Grant Baldwin is educational as well as entertaining, bringing attention to the alarming problem which is having devastating consequences around the globe.

Virunga (2014) on Netflix

The Oscar-nominated true story of the rangers risking their lives to save Africa’s most precious Virunga National Park and its endangered species, such as the Mountain Gorillas, is an investigative one. It tells the story through four people including gorilla caregiver Andre Brauma, central sector warden Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo, chief warden Emmanuel de Merode and French investigative journalist Melanie Gouby, with emphasis on the biodiversity of Virunga and the political and economic issues surrounding oil exploration and armed conflict in the region. In 2020, it was reported that actor Leonardo DiCaprio has teamed up with Moonlight director Barry Jenkins for a movie adaptation of the documentary.