2025 Films for the Forest: More Than Trees

Forests are more than just trees. They form a complex and marvelous network of life and death, maintaining an intricate balance for millennia. They are the greatest source of food and shelter, a home of beauty, power, and mystery—the cradle of humanity.

In 2025, we challenge filmmakers worldwide to take us deep into their stories and help everyone experience forests beyond the trees.

As complex systems, forests are in constant transformation. They learn and adapt, self-regulate, and sustain a vast diversity of interactions among animals, plants, fungi, microorganisms, and humans. They exist in continuous synergy with the ecosystems around them.

This year, at Films for the Forest, we look forward to sharing stories that reveal how forests are an inexhaustible source of ancestral wisdom, exuberance, and harmony.

About Films for the Forest Competition

Launched by Rainforest Partnership in 2010, Films for the Forest (F3) is an annual juried short film competition that invites filmmakers from around the world to share the voices and stories of forests worldwide, highlighting their rich biodiversity and local communities, their immense beauty and importance to the entire planet, the threats they face, and the opportunities for renewal.

Films for the Forest aims to use the power of creative visual storytelling to convene, empower, and activate global audiences to take action on behalf of the world's forests.

Why Films For the Forest?

Do you remember watching a film that inspired you to take action? The art of filmmaking can transport us to new places, introduce us to new perspectives, and tell stories that resonate with us on a deeper level. At Rainforest Partnership, we believe in the transformative power of film. This is why we created Films for the Forest, our international film challenge, in 2010.

About Rainforest Partnership

Founded in 2007 in Austin, Texas, Rainforest Partnership is an international nonprofit organization that protects tropical rainforests by partnering with indigenous and local communities to support sustainable livelihoods, thriving biodiversity, and long-term conservation.

Tropical rainforests make up less than three percent of the Earth's surface area, yet they are disproportionately critical to the balance and well-being of the entire planet. Despite their crucial role in regulating global climate cycles and protecting biodiversity, the world is losing about 10,000 acres of Amazon rainforests daily. The United Nations says the planet may reach a tipping point by 2030. If the current environmental degradation rate continues, the world’s tropical rainforests could be entirely lost.

“Protecting standing tropical rainforests is a climate solution that plays a vital role in our collective future, no matter where on the planet we live”  Niyanta Spelman, CEO of Rainforest Partnership.