Between Earth and Sky & Last of the Nightingales

Andrew Nadkarni (2023, U.S., 26 min.) + Masha Karpoukhina (2022, U.S., 32 min.)

This was our final film screening in the “Mind Over Matter” 2024-25 film series, two short films celebrating individuals who have harnessed their powers in service of protecting nature and the planet and fighting to create more resilient natural communities.

Our first short, The Last of the Nightingales, followed the work of Bernie Krause, a legendary pioneer of the field of acoustic ecology, which explores the soundscapes of the natural world. Krause’s 30 years of recordings of regions’ soundscapes have helped to chart long-term changes in natural areas that may not be readily apparent by sight alone and have revealed more starkly the impacts of climate change and natural disasters on our natural landscapes. Krause tirelessly uses his work to advocate for protecting our natural world. As he says, “While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a soundscape is worth a thousand pictures.”

Our second short, Between Earth and Sky, celebrated a bad-ass of ecology, Nalini Nadkarni, known as the “Queen of the Forest Canopy,” who has her own limited edition Barbie doll that celebrates her accomplishments as a leading scientist of the rainforests. Nadkarni is always on the go, a mind moving a mile a minute who will do anything, even learn to harness climb her way up high into the canopy in pursuit of her science, as well as other goals like empowering more women to enter science. But when Nadkarni suffers a near-fatal fall, she’ll need to concentrate on “mind over matter” to regain the ability to walk, let alone become queen of the canopy once more. In the process, she’ll have to reckon with all the stories the mind tells and hides. But also in the process she reflects on the unique nature of trees to be both individuals and communities at the same time.

(This film screening was a collaboration with POV, PBS’ award-winning nonfiction film series: https://www.pbs.org/pov/, and was also screened in partnership with WPSU and the Arboretum at Penn State. Between Earth and Sky originally premiered on POV on October 5, 2023)