This year’s lineup includes six locally produced movies with an impressive list of national awards. Jennifer Grace’s Frog, Chemical, Water, You addresses worldwide amphibian declines and environmental contaminants. It was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution and won a 2009 National Student Emmy, Best Newcomer at the 2009 International Wildlife Film Festival, and is a finalist at the 2009 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival.

Ceiba, by Dawson Dunning was filmed at archaeological sites across Belize and tells the story of wildlife in the Maya creation myth, at the center of which is the Ceiba tree - the bridge between the heavens, earth and the underworld. It won a 2009 bronze TELLY award for Cultural Film and bronze TELLY award for Cinematography.

Anne Devereux made The Receiver while on a Fulbright Scholarship in Kazakhstan. It is a poignant modern-life tale from the outskirts of the former Soviet Union about a cab driver whose only reprieve from his lonely life are the secret connections he makes with perfect strangers. It was an official selection at three Oscar qualifying film festivals: Aspen Shortsfest, the Athens International Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Film Festival. It also screened at Cannes Short Film Corner.

Composting bins are complex and rich ecosystems that harbor several organisms rarely seen by the naked eye. Composting Bin: a Human Made Ecosystem by Federico Pardo is a close-up view of a micro world that humans have created.

Josh Cassidy’s Wheat, profiles Yukiko Naruka, a plant genetics researcher from southern Japan who came to Bozeman to study the most American of grains. Wheat is a bilingual, biographic exploration of Yukiko’s experience searching for wheat varieties suitable to bring home to Japanese soil.