In a nutshell: In West Virginia’s Coal River Valley, a coal waste dumping ground looms behind Marsh Fork elementary school. Facing a surge in health problems and contaminated drinking water, locals wage undertake an unrelenting quest to protect their children and country.

Scene you can't sleep through: Opening the film with a home video of residents choking on a coal filled sky while the scoured hillsides tumble with debris dramatically reinforces a movie focused on the local response to coal’s health and environmental impacts.

Food for thought: As oil billows nonstop into the Gulf of Mexico unleashing havoc on Gulf ecosystems, coal creeps at geologic speed down our river systems polluting them with arsenic and heavy metals. —William Shubert

Corner Plot

In a nutshell: A small farmer in the big city, 89-year-old Charlie Koiner and his daughter grow a bounty in urban Washington D.C.

Scene you can't sleep through: Charlie tenderly works the soil, high-rise apartments looming over him. (Note: since this is a ten minute short, if you close your eyes at any point you might wake up in the next movie.)

Food for thought: Are individual farmers like Charlie Koiner fading into memory? —William Shubert

Arsy-Versy (Slovak for “Upside Down”)

In a nutshell: Happy-go-lucky Lubomir Remo is in his 50s, lives with his mother, and spends his spare time devoted to the study and photography of bats in his native Slovakia. His mother, meanwhile, worries what will become of her carefree son once she is gone.

Scene you can’t sleep through: Remo fastens himself upside down to a tree in his yard and proclaims he is “the biggest bat in the world.”