The SunChild 13th International Environmental Festival will take place from May 16th to 20th, 2025, screening over 40 of the best environmental films from around the world. On a planet that faces complex issues that threaten to tear us apart, we hope to provide a platform to find the connection to sustain life․ SunChild IEF is a celebration of nature, creating space for people to come together, learn, and create solutions.
About the Festival
SunChild International Environmental Festival, established by the Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC), is the first and the only environmental festival in the South Caucasus region. More than 780 films from 150 countries worldwide were screened over its last 15 years of existence. The film festival includes various activities such as carnival marches, dozens of workshops, conferences, and exhibitions. Besides being rich in content, all events are eye-catching due to their colorful and unique approaches. The festival travels in the regions of Armenia throughout the whole year, involving a large number of children and youth, facilitating identification and creative solutions to community environmental issues by organizing thematic film screenings, discussions, and other initiatives. By directly targeting communities through encouragement and support to take action locally, it will create a lasting effect within the community. The festival aims to bring nature, wildlife, and the environment into the focus of public attention and increase knowledge about issues among citizens, especially among children and youth.
Theme: Symbiosis between Humans and Nature
Each year SunChild IEF highlights different environmental topics to raise awareness and become a platform for discussion. For the 13th edition of the festival, we chose Symbiosis in a Non-Anthropocentric World as a central theme. All of our events in some way or another aim to unveil the complex nature of symbiosis conservation challenges in Armenia, the South Caucasus Region, and beyond. The symbiotic relationship between humans and nature has a large footnote in human history. By highlighting a potential dying value, we can educate citizens on our micro-destruction/abandonment of habitats that once encouraged a non-anthropocentric civilization. To contrast the abandonment, solutions can be proposed by conserving stories that exemplify our current harmony with nature. With the help of showcasing the destruction, the harmony, and additional conceptual solutions/visions, we can raise awareness of a value that deserves to be recognized and upheld by future generations.
SunChild 13th International Environmental Festival has 4 nominations
• Feature-length Documentaries about Symbiosis between Humans and Nature within the lens of Abandoning Symbiosis and/or Symbiotic Harmony.
This program is dedicated to promoting public awareness of stories, issues, and challenges about symbiosis on earth. Our responsibility is to protect habitats and relationships between humans and nature that are slowly losing contact. By showcasing films that focus on either the abandonment of symbiosis or the encouragement of symbiosis, it can emphasize the current problems and solutions we face in modern civilization. Films that may be submitted could be solely about symbiotic separation, and symbiotic harmony, or include both thematic elements.
Documentaries released after March 2024 are welcome to be submitted for this competition.
The film may run between 60 minutes and 3 hours. To have a longer film considered, please contact SunChild IEF.
• Short Films about Symbiosis between Humans and Nature within the lens of Abandoning Symbiosis and/or Symbiotic Harmony.
This program is dedicated to promoting public awareness of stories, issues, and challenges about symbiosis worldwide. Showcasing short films that focus on either the abandonment of symbiosis or the encouragement of symbiosis can emphasize the current problems and solutions we face in modern civilization. Films that may be submitted could be solely about symbiotic separation, and symbiotic harmony, or that include both thematic elements.
Short films of any genre released after March 2024 are welcome to be submitted for this competition. The film may be 5-45 minutes in length.
• Youth and Children about Environmental Conservation
Films about environmental issues made by children and youth, released after March 2024.
Age range: 10-25 years. The Film may be around 3-8 minutes long. To have a longer film considered, please contact SunChild IEF.
• John Burton Conservation Award: Films about Conservationists
Films about Conservationists from all around the world.
Named after conservationist John Burton, this award will spotlight films about nature conservation with a strong directorial vision.
With this award, SunChild IEF wants to honor the memory of John Burton, who died in May 2022.
The award will be granted to the best conservation films about individuals, who strive to make a change in the world. John Burton was a revolutionary, visionary, and inspirational conservationist whose creative thinking saved over 300,000 hectares of threatened habitat from damaging development.
He challenged the usual approaches to preserving wild creatures and their habitats.
Sir David Attenborough described him as “a truly wonderful man, more altruistic, more energetic, braver and more original than almost anyone I have known.”
Films released after March 2024 are welcome to be submitted for this competition.
• Non-Competition Films’ Section for the Educational/Informational program.
In this Non-Competition Program, we encourage films to be submitted but not limited to the theme of Symbiosis between Humans and Nature. In this category, we welcome films about environmental issues and challenges from all around the world.
Films of any genre released after March 2024 are welcome to be submitted for this competition.
The film may run between 5 minutes and 2 hours. To have a shorter or longer film considered, don't hesitate to get in touch with SunChild IEF.
