Nine Pulitzer Center-Supported Video Projects on Global Health

On March 12, the Pulitzer Center hosted a virtual film festival at the 2021 conference of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), screening Pulitzer Center-supported films by journalists, documentary filmmakers, and reporting fellows. For those who could not attend, the full screening, including eight finished projects and one trailer, has been shared here.

Films include:

The Global Crisis in Recycling — Fortune magazine
With the world drowning in plastic, the need for recycling is more acute than ever. But the industry that handles all that waste is on the verge of collapse.

The Gulf of Mexico’s Dead Zone, Explained — Grist
We need fertilizer to grow the food the world needs to survive. But fertilizer pollution turns lakes into slime pits, kills fish and other marine life, contaminates drinking water, and creates suffocating smog. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is another repercussion of excess fertilizer that flows downstream, but cover crops present a potential solution.

Mi Casita — Coastal Review Online
With rising temperatures brought on by climate change, hurricanes have increased in power and frequency, weakening infrastructures and increasing displacement. Mi Casita tells the story of a North Carolina family in a low-income community and their struggle to stay in their home after Hurricane Florence. 

A Deadly Shade of Green: Tainted Water Fears — centralmaine.com
In Rigolet, Canada, an isolated Inuit community, each of the five dozen or so homes built on the hill are within a half-mile of the docks, where the fresh waters of Lake Melville mingle with the salty Atlantic. The extent to which those waters could be poisoned by toxins associated with a new upstream hydropower project is a matter of fierce scientific and political debate. But Inuit community members are worried about the deadly implications on their food supply and way of life.

Congo Basin’s Endangered Wildlife Find Unlikely Guardians in Indigenous Hunters — PBS NewsHour
The Congo Basin is home to the world's second-largest rainforest and a unique array of biodiversity. In an attempt to fight back against poaching, Indigenous tribal hunters have become gamekeepers, protecting Africa's most endangered wildlife.

SIONA: Amazon’s Protectors Under Threat — The New Yorker
The territory of the Siona Indigenous group and its surroundings were marred with land mines planted during the Colombian civil war. Today, members of the Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines undertake courageous demining work to restore ancestral Siona land and protect the well-being of their people.

How Decades of Housing Discrimination Hurts Fresno in the Pandemic — Retro Report
In Fresno, California, the coronavirus pandemic has magnified damage caused by decades of discriminatory housing practices. Residents of its poorest neighborhoods, mostly people of color, face eviction at a higher rate than their white neighbors.

Undocumented in the Pandemic — The Marshall Project and PBS' FRONTLINE
Norma, an undocumented mother in the midst of a global crisis, struggles to keep her five children housed and healthy while she fights for the release of her husband from a detention center as the virus spreads through it.

Back From the Brink (trailer) — Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow Dustin Jones
Marine veteran Bill Kirner struggles with PTSD and suicide after returning home from combat. His wife, Ashley, explains the singular experience of being married to a veteran struggling with mental health issues and worrying she may come home one day to find he has died by suicide.