In the gorgeous setting of central Brazil, a rag tag group of 10000 mayan calendar followers, bioregionalists, permaculture experts, Rastafarians, alternative health practitioners, and NGO executives work towards a do-it-yourself action plan to make the world a better place in 13 days and prepare for 2012.

What prompts this film is recognition of our deep dependence on the natural world and the significant threat to that world posed by war and preparations for war. The scale of environmental damage over the last half century is unprecedented. Falling water tables, shrinking forest cover, declining species diversity - all presage ecosystems in distress.

Be the Change explores the motivations for, and the challenges and rewards of, trying to live more lightly. This is a "100-kilometre" film made entirely in the Ottawa region, using sustainable practices whenever possible.

Unlimited: Renewable Energy in the 21st Century is a 26 minute documentary about renewable energy and other alternatives to fossil fuels. It features a group of passionate children calling for adults to take action and address global warming.

EVERYTHING'S COOL is a film about America finally "getting" global warming in the wake of the most dangerous chasm ever to emerge between scientific understanding and political action.

"ALL JACKED UP" is an angst-driven portrait of four teenagers who discover the truth about their obsessive, addictive, and emotion-fueled eating habits. All this brought on by their parents, schools, and our abusive food system that profits from them with no regard to their well-being.

Meat the Truth is a high-profile documentary, presented by Marianne Thieme (leader of the Party for the Animals), which forms an addendum to earlier films that have been made about climate change. Although such films have convincingly succeeded in drawing public attention to the issue of global warming, they have repeatedly ignored one of the most important causes of climate change, namely: intensive livestock production.

Calling itself "the world's first global-warming comedy," cheeky low-budgeter "Beyond the Pole" brings a breath of satirical fresh air to a topic that's rapidly approaching media suffocation. Mockumentary about two fumbling Brit amateurs who want to save the planet by walking to the North Pole plays like a cross between "The Office" and a "Touching the Void" parody set in the Arctic. Sending up earnest documentary cliches as well as eco-warriors, this modest but good-looking item goes out digitally in Blighty in February (following offshore fest screenings last year) and will play equally well on the smallscreen.