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Short Films, Big IdeasFocus Forward is an unprecedented new series of 30 three-minute stories about innovative people who are reshaping the world through act or invention, directed by the world's most celebrated documentary filmmakers. Watch the five films premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival: The Landfill, Heart Stop Beating, Newton Creek Digester Eggs: The Art of Human Waste, Meet Mr. Toilet, Hilary’s Straws. |
The ChallengeIf you have an idea for a three-minute nonfiction film around the theme of invention and innovation, then it's time to get to work! GE and CINELAN are giving away $200,000 in cash prizes to the top five entries in our Focus Forward Filmmaker Challenge, with $100,000 going to the Grand Prize Winner. Submissions are open. Winners will be announced at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Details here. |
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The Landfill
Trash becomes energy at a small New York landfill where people are thinking differently about garbage.
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Heart Stop Beating
In March 2011, two visionary doctors from the Texas Heart Institute successfully replaced a dying man's heart with a 'continuous flow' device, proving that life was possible without a heart beat.
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Newton Creek Digester Eggs: The Art of Human Waste
An unusual marriage of form and function energizes the jaw-droppingly beautiful Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn, New York.
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Meet Mr. Toilet
For those without access to a simple toilet, poop can be poison. Businessman-turned-sanitation-superhero Jack Sim fights this oft-neglected crisis affecting 2.6 billion people.
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Hilary's Straws
A moving portrait of Hilary Lister, a quadriplegic champion sailor whose metal-and-circuit-board navigational tool, invented with friends, led her to conquer the oceans of the world.