QUEER ECOLOGY – Portland EcoFilm Fest

The Portland EcoFilm Festival presents its first ever screening at Cinema 21! It’s an encore presentation of this season’s QUEER ECOLOGY program, featuring three new films by queer filmmakers about intersections of nature, ecology, disability, Indigeneity, and queerness.

The Portland EcoFilm Festival presents:
An encore presentation of QUEER ECOLOGY (2025) — Three new short films make up this program:

ANIMAL PRIDE
Canada | 2024 | 49 minutes | Dir. Rio Mitchell

In this super fun, eye opening documentary, Connel Bradwell, a queer naturalist, challenges mainstream biology’s blindspot for queer behavior in nature. Schooled in the birds and the bees, survival of the fittest, and The Origin of Species, Connel explores the disconnective fallacy: how can humans be queer, while animals supposedly aren’t?

ÁHKUIN
Official Selection, 2025 Indigenous Voices Series

Finland | 2024 | 20 minutes
Dir. Radio-JusSunná / Sunná Nousuniemi, Guhtur Niillas Rita Duomis / Tuomas Kumpulainen

With the singular Sámi oral storytelling tradition of joik at its center, ÁHKUIN is a visual and musical call-and-response between a grandmother and her descendants. Archival interviews and the joik of Maarit-áhkku (queer director Sunná Máret Nousuniemi’s grandmother) unspool as a connective thread across time, inviting us through a portal into this corner of Sápmi. Here, the rhythms of time are set by the daily tasks that assured the survival of those who came before.

MOSS TIME, CRIP TIME
USA | 2024 | 14 minutes | Dir. Cynthia Ling Lee

Reveling in micro-movement and lingering in moss-time, this dance film embodies gratitude to moss as beloved teacher of lessons in crip survival and thriving. Celebrate smallness. Practice patience. Grow only when there is enough resource. Nestle in the warmth and safety of the boundary layer. Survive in the most unexpected places. (Contains experimental audio description and open captions.)

Event Link: https://www.cinema21.com/movie/the-portland-ecofilm-festival-queer-ecology

The 2025 Portland EcoFilm Festival features dozens of the best new ecological films from around the world, our annual Indigenous Voices series, several special presentations, community conversations with special guests, and opportunities to engage with organizations that are involved in multifaceted, broad-based ecological solutions.

Our festival season lasts several months, providing the opportunity to integrate these important films more thoroughly into the programming of the Hollywood Theatre, a beloved cultural institution.