Our Mission

Planet in Focus is Canada’s leading not-for-profit environmental media arts organization. Now in our 25th year our mandate is to produce cultural events that showcase engaging and artistic films that question, explore, and tell stories about the world in which we live. We use film as a catalyst for change, for public awareness, discussion and engagement on a broad range of environmental issues.

About PLANET IN FOCUS FOUNDATION

The Planet in Focus Foundation supports the charitable activities of the Planet in Focus: International Environmental Film & Video Festival. Planet in Focus screens and promotes outstanding and compelling films and videos (documentaries, dramas, experimental and animation) covering a broad range of environmental themes by Canadian and International filmmakers. We aim to promote the use of film and video as catalysts for environmental awareness, discussion, and deeper engagement on the ecological and social health of the planet. The Festival also hosts panel discussions, workshops, a school touring program and a children's program.

We have a proven track record delivering environmental film programming and engagement activities to schools/students reaching 80,000 students to date across Canada. The Planet in Focus Green School Tours program is free for elementary schools with a curated list of environmental films, teachers guides and filmmaker Q&A sessions. 

Piloted in 2014, the Eco-Film Lab teaches elementary and secondary teachers the basics of filmmaking and they go back to their classrooms to work with their students who create their own short environmental films. 

In the Spring of 2017 Planet in Focus headed North to Attawapiskat where we partnered with Indigenous filmmakers and the community. Participating youth completed a 2 weeks long, hands-on filmmaking training to tell their own eco stories about issues in the Attawapiskat community- inadequate housing, fresh water, pollution, mining, and cost of living. 

Our Cross Canada Campus Tour brings the best of our fest to universities and colleges across the country during the winter semester. Tour stops have included Halifax, Guelph, Winnipeg, Northern British Columbia and the Yukon where films and panel discussions took part in university campus sustainability events.