Tickets are now on sale for DCEFF 2026! Running March 19-28, the Festival will feature 50+ programs at venues throughout DC (many free).
Check out the links in our bio or visit dceff.org for more info.
📸 Credit: Malaika Pictures - YANUNI, directed by Richard Ladkani
Just a little over two months until Opening Night of DCEFF 2026! We’re excited to start making some announcements soon!
With the theme “Against the Current”, this year’s lineup will be dedicated to amplifying the unwavering voices of those who press on in defense of our planet, even in the face of significant challenges.
We are so honored to again be voted the District’s Best Film Festival in Washington City Paper’s Best of DC! This is our 7th(!) year in a row receiving this accolade and it always leads to a lot of “hooray for us!” But our staff, hardworking as they are, also share this award with our filmmakers, special guests, and partners.
Are we still the best fest without great films like OUT OF PLAIN SIGHT, THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT, and KEEPER? Do we make the cut without panelists like Quannah Chasinghorse, Ben Masters, and Royal Ramey - and pros like Greg McGruder, Juliet Eilperin, and Rev. Lennox Yearwood leading those conversations? Do we still get the most votes without our free screenings at embassies, museums, and universities? Probably not.
So, thank you to everyone who made DCEFF 2025 so special. We’re looking forward to doing it all again in 6 months.
“This Tony Leung drama will leaf you mesmerized.” - RogerEbert.com 🍁 🌳 😏
The critically-acclaimed SILENT FRIEND (also starring Lea Seydoux) opens Friday at the @afisilvertheatre ! We’re proud to be co-presenting this stunning and thoughtful new film on humanity’s connection to the natural world. 🔗 in bio for showtimes and tickets.
We’re so excited to again be a community partner of the Hollywood Climate Summit! This partnership grows our creative sector’s awareness and action on this issue, while emphasizing the importance of storytelling to direct public attention toward the climate. hollywoodclimatesummit.com/tickets
If you work in entertainment or media and care about the environment, then the Hollywood Climate Summit is for you. June 3 and 4 in LA (and FREE online), this conference brings cross-sector professionals together for programming, networking, and plant-based eats built around real climate action. Use our partner code for 25% off your pass (DM us for the code)!
Happy 100th birthday to the one-and-only Sir David Attenborough!
We were so fortunate to have Attenborough join us for our 2004 Festival, where he received a the Smithsonian Medal for a lifetime of distinguished work. In the 20+ years since, he hasn’t slowed down, continuing to lend his considerable talents to moving and award-winning nature films and series, including last year’s OCEAN and A GORILLA STORY, released just last month on Netflix.
10 years later. The fight isn’t over.
Stream NOT WITHOUT US free till May 6th. The documentary that followed Indigenous leaders, frontline communities, and climate justice organizers as they demanded a seat at the Paris table.
Then join us LIVE on May 6 at 1PM EST for a panel with key cast members reflecting on a decade of promises, progress, and what still needs to change.
Who gets to shape climate solutions? That question was urgent in 2016. It’s urgent right now.
Watch April 22 – May 5
Live panel: May 6 | 1PM EST
Link in bio
#NotWithoutUs #EarthDay #ClimateJustice #IndigenousRights
Berta Cáceres was Lenca. She co-founded COPINH. She organized her community against the Agua Zarca Dam on the Río Gualcarque, a river sacred to her people, and she won. The world’s largest dam builder pulled out. She received the Goldman Prize in 2015.
A year later, armed men entered her home and killed her. She was 44. Her name had been on a hitlist carried by soldiers trained at Fort Benning.
Not Without Us is dedicated to Berta and to every land defender who has been killed for refusing to move. Twelve in Honduras the year before her death. Hundreds since, around the world. The work she did is the work this film is about. The work that is still being done by the people in it.
Watch the film, free through May 6 with @dceff_org . Then join us for the live panel, May 6 at 1 PM EST, moderated by director Mark Decena, with the people who went to Paris and told the truth.
Berta vive. La lucha sigue.
Link in bio.
Did we live up to the title of DC’s Best Film Festival again this year? Washington City Paper’s Best of DC voting is going on now! DCEFF is honored to have been voted the District’s Best Film Festival the past seven(!) years in a row, but we also feel that 2026 was our best Fest yet.
Did you enjoy free programming at unique venues? Were you moved by a particular film and/or conversation? Did you make connections or gain new understanding? Now more than ever, we hope you will help send a message about the importance of environmental storytelling by voting for us in the Arts & Entertainment category.
Pablo Solón was Bolivia’s chief United Nations climate negotiator when most countries were still pretending the talks were going well. He wasn’t. He walked Bolivia out of the Copenhagen accord. He helped pass the UN resolution
recognizing water as a human right. He was part of the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights in Cochabamba, where 35,000 people drafted what governments wouldn’t.
In Paris he was telling the truth about what the agreement was, and what it wasn’t to the most powerful force on the planet: humanity.
He’s still doing that work from La Paz. Still calling out for systems change. Still organizing alternatives.
Watch Not Without Us, free through May 6 with @dceff_org . Live panel May 6 at 1 PM EST, moderated by director Mark Decena.
Link in bio.
Pat Mooney has been tracking corporate power over the food system since 1977. Before most people were paying attention to seed patents, he was. Before geoengineering had a Wikipedia page, he was warning about it. The Right Livelihood Award in 1985. The Pearson Peace Prize. A Giraffe Award, given to people who stick their necks out.
In Paris he was doing what he’s always done. Connecting the dots between who owns the technology, who writes the rules, and who pays the price when both fail.
The false solutions he warned about ten years ago are the ones being sold to us now as climate policy.
Watch Not Without Us, free through May 6 with @dceff_org . Live panel May 6 at 1 PM EST, moderated by director Mark Decena.
Link in bio.
