TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA | David Bim

RUNA SIMI | Augusto Zegarra & Fernando Valencia Saire

Fernando Valencia Saire is a talented voice actor and movie lover from Peru. Together with his son, Dylan, Fernando is on a quest to dub Disney's THE LION KING into Quechua, his mother tongue and the most spoken Indigenous language in the Americas. Augusto Zegarra's heartwarming and beautifully crafted documentary, RUNA SIMI, follows Fernando and Dylan through the cities, villages, mountains, and fields of Peru as they dream and do their best to make this beloved classic accessible and more relevant to millions of Quechua speakers. We sat down with Augusto and Fernando to discuss the nuances of translation, linguistic ecology, media sovereignty, the gifts that Indigenous languages offer the world, and more. RUN SIMI is an Official Selection in our Indigenous Voices series, and it won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the 2026 Portland EcoFilm Festival [portlandecofilmfest.org] This is a spoiler-free episode appropriate for people of all ages who have and have not seen RUNA SIMI. Our theme music is from the song “Earth Worship” by the amazing band, Rubblebucket [https://www.portlandecofilmfest.org/rubblebucket.com]. Our podcast is hosted, edited, and produced by Rozzell Medina. The Portland EcoFilm Festival is a signature program of the Hollywood Theatre [https://hollywoodtheatre.org./], Portland's premier modern-historic movie palace. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this program are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Film Forever Northwest or its affiliates.

WOMAN IN THE DUNES & Kōbō Abe | Dr. Timothy Iles

Renowned Japanese film, literature, and theater scholar Dr. Timothy Iles joins us to discuss ecological aspects of WOMAN IN THE DUNES and Kōbō Abe's expansive ecological imagination beyond this novel and film. Kōbō Abe wrote WOMAN IN THE DUNES beginning in about 1960. It was published as a novel in 1962 to international acclaim, establishing him as a major writer. Kōbō Abe’s primary cinematic collaborator, Hiroshi Teshigahara, brought Abe’s own adaptation of the novel to cinemas two years later. WOMAN IN THE DUNES tells the tale of a self-absorbed entomologist named Niki Jumpei who travels from Tokyo to a remote oceanside desert. He’s there to search for rare tiger beetles in the hopes that he can gain acclaim by pinning his own name to an undiscovered version of them. After missing his bus back to the city, he’s tricked by villagers who imprison Niki in a deep sand pit with a mysterious woman who has been living in an expectedly rustic house down there for quite some time. Beyond winning major awards, including several Oscar nominations, upon its release, the film version of WOMAN IN THE DUNES is renowned as an arthouse masterpiece of the Japanese New Wave. Kōbō Abe’s literary qualities are often associated with existentialism, surrealism, alienation, and absurdity. While all of these are appropriate to some extent, his expansive ecological imagination is present throughout his work. And while it hasn’t gone completely ignored, like many things ecological in the fractured world that Abe critiqued, it has been under-explored despite its singular mystique. This is why we selected WOMAN IN THE DUNES for inclusion in our expansive ecological imagination [https://portlandecofilmfest.org/expansive] series, which frames an ongoing exploration and motivation to do what the title suggests: expand our individual and collective imagination about ecological possibilities, questions, inspirations, solutions, and beyond.   To help us delve into the ecology of WOMAN IN THE DUNES and Kōbō Abe beyond that novel and film, we turned to one of the foremost experts and scholars on Kōbō Abe: Dr. Timothy Iles. Dr. Iles has been learning, teaching, and writing about Abe and his collaboration with Hiroshi Teshigahara for decades. We discuss themes of community, metamorphosis, adaptation, and identity in the Abe’s work, as well as what they have to teach humanity about the world we live in and some of the problems we face. We also discuss the characters that haunt WOMAN IN THE DUNES and how the narrative brims with allegorical possibility. Find Dr. Iles' film amd literature recommendations--and more here [https://www.portlandecofilmfest.org/woman-in-the-dunes-podcast]. Our theme music is from the song “Earth Worship” by the amazing band, Rubblebucket [rubblebucket.com]. Our podcast is hosted, edited, and produced by Rozzell Medina. The Portland EcoFilm Festival is a signature program of the Hollywood Theatre [https://hollywoodtheatre.org.], Portland's premier modern-historic movie palace. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this program are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Film Forever Northwest or its affiliates.

TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA | David Bim

On this episode of the Global Ecological Cinema Podcast from the Portland EcoFilm Festival [portlandecofilmfest.org], we talk with David Bim, whose film, TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA (AL OESTE EN ZAPATA), earned our festival’s 2026 Black Merlin Grand Prize. The cinematic, feature-length documentary tells a deeply human story about a family's life and love in the most remote part of Cuba at the height of Covid-19. Presented in stunning black and white, with immersive, multidimensional soundscapes, it’s a film that fully embodies time and space, nurtures empathy, and lingers in the imagination long after the end credits roll.   During the first half of our conversation, we discuss the ecology of place-based filmmaking, the ancient cinematic impulse, and the ecological characteristics of Satyajit Ray’s films, which kept David company as he shot TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA as a one-man crew on location in the Cuban wilderness.  Then we focus on TO THE WEST, IN ZAPATA more intently. David shares his experience capturing one of the film’s most iconic sequences while wading chest-deep in the swamp, and we discuss the cyclical nature of the love and land that gives life to his award-winning film.  Our interpreter is Luis Medina--with additional assistance from Stefania Montaña. Our theme music is from the song “Earth Worship” by the amazing band, Rubblebucket [https://www.portlandecofilmfest.org/rubblebucket.com]. Our podcast is hosted, edited, and produced by Rozzell Medina. The Portland EcoFilm Festival is a signature program of the Hollywood Theatre [hollywoodtheatre.org], Portland's premier modern-historic movie palace. Learn more at hollywoodtheatre.org [http://hollywoodtheatre.org]. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this program are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Film Forever Northwest or its affiliates.

Cradled by the Earth

When Renata Mireilles and David Vêluz prepared to make a feature-length documentary about Indigenous childhood in Brazil, they did so not with a script in hand and cameras pointed, eagerly. Instead, they approached the exploration with open hearts and minds, asking the Guarani Kaiowá, Guarani Ñandeva, Baniwa, and Khisêtjê peoples, “What would you like to celebrate about the ways you raise your children?” The resulting film, CRADLED BY THE EARTH (DE COLO DA TERRA), is a connective, conversant, and uplifting meditation on the vitality of customs, play, and the Earth as teacher. We visited with Renata and David about working in deep collaboration with Indigenous communities, how the film fits into their ongoing creative project about childhood (Territory of Play [https://territoriodobrincar.com.br/en/the-project/]), rejoicing in the remembrance of our responsibility to future generations, cinema as a bridge between cultures, and more. CRADLED BY THE EARTH is an Official Selection in the 2026 Portland EcoFilm Festival's Indigenous Voices series, where it received its USA premiere at the Clinton Street Theater [https://cstpdx.com/]. Learn more about the Portland EcoFilm Festival and our podcast at portlandecofilmfest.org [http://portlandecofilmfest.org] where you'll also find detailed show notes and our guests' film recommendations from this episode. Our theme music is from the song “Earth Worship” by the amazing band, Rubblebucket [rubblebucket.com]. Our podcast is hosted, edited, and produced by our festival director, Rozzell Medina. The Portland EcoFilm Festival is a signature program of the Hollywood Theatre, Portland's premier modern-historic movie palace. Learn more at hollywoodtheatre.org [http://hollywoodtheatre.org]. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this program are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Film Forever Northwest or its affiliates.

Distance to the Moon

DISTANCE TO THE MOON is a stop-motion animation film about X, who discovers a ladder that stretches infinitely into space and goes on a journey that isn't just physical. He traverses solitude, memory, grief, and hope, encountering various meaningful beings along the way. For this episode, we spoke with the film's writer and co-director, Sacha Kyle, and composer, Giles Lamb. We discussed finding inspiration in dreams and the more than human world, expanding our imaginations around ecological grief and grieving, simultaneously loving and letting go of what the world used to be--and more. This episode features audio excerpts of Giles' hauntingly beautiful score for the film--and a brief excerpt from a piece of music that he considers to be ecological. DISTANCE TO THE MOON is an Official Selection in the 2026 Portland EcoFilm Festival. It was featured in our EXPANSIVE ECOLOGICAL IMAGINATION 1 program on March 26, 2026 at the Hollywood Theatre (sponsored by SOLVE [https://riverside.com/solve.org]). We are a signature program of the Hollywood Theatre [https://riverside.com/hollywoodtheatre.org], Portland's premier modern-historic movie palace. Find more extensive show notes, including Sacha's ecological film recommendations and Giles' ecological music recommendations at: portlandecofilmfest.org/podcast [http://portlandecofilmfest.org/podcast] Please subscribe, share, and give us a great review! Thanks for listening, for supporting global ecological cinema, and for all the good you do in the world! Our theme music is from the song “Earth Worship” by the amazing band, Rubblebucket. Our podcast is hosted, edited, and produced by our festival director, Rozzell Medina. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this program are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Film Forever Northwest or its affiliate