Rising Together: Belonging Beyond Borders
A film about the people growing Arizona’s future
Across Arizona, people are working every day to care for the land, strengthen their communities, protect water, grow food, restore habitat, prepare for extreme heat, and create a more resilient future for the generations still to come.
Rising Together: Belonging Beyond Borders is a cinematic short film about the people and organizations shaping what comes next.
This is a story about food, water, heat, health, wildlife, culture, community, and the deep relationships that connect all of them.
From dry farming and desert cities to river restoration sites, school gardens, borderlands, tribal lands, and wildlife corridors, the film follows the work already happening across Arizona and asks a larger question:
What becomes possible when we rise together?
Watch the film
The full film will be available to the public beginning August 25.
On August 26, Reel Earth Films and the Arizona Community Foundation will host a special online screening and conversation for the ACF community, bringing people together around the stories, organizations, and ideas featured in the film.
Until the public release, access to the film is password protected. If you would like to host a screening of your own, or are interested in watching the film, please inquire by sending us a message to: info ( a t ) reelearthfilms.org
Why We Made This Film
Reel Earth Films was created around a simple belief: when people feel connected to the natural world, they are more likely to care about it, protect it, and take part in shaping its future.
But storytelling should do more than create awareness.
Too often, films take time, energy, knowledge, and trust from the people doing the work, then leave them with little more than exposure. With Rising Together, our goal was different.
We wanted to create a film that celebrates the beauty of Arizona while also helping people see the depth of work already taking place across the state. The organizations featured in this film are restoring rivers, growing food, planting trees, protecting wildlife corridors, teaching young people, rebuilding habitat, strengthening communities, and carrying forward cultural knowledge rooted in land and water.
This film is our offering to that work.
It is a way to help more people see it, understand it, and feel connected to the future it is making possible.
Part of a Larger Movement
Rising Together was created by Reel Earth Films in partnership with the Arizona Community Foundation as part of our participation in ACF’s Environmental Accelerator.
The Accelerator brings together organizations, practitioners, community leaders, and partners working across Arizona’s environmental landscape. Through that process, Reel Earth Films has been helping tell a larger story about the people and places at the heart of this work.
The goal is not simply to highlight environmental challenges. It is to show the solutions already taking root, the communities already leading, and the opportunity Arizona has to become a model for resilience, restoration, and belonging.
This film is one piece of that larger effort.
It is a love letter to Arizona, and a call to recognize the work already underway.
A Story With Many Doorways
Every person may enter this film through a different part of the story.
For some, it may be food. The film looks at local growing traditions, dry farming, food deserts, school gardens, and new ways to grow food in a hotter, drier climate.
For some, it may be water. The story follows efforts to restore rivers, protect aquifers, slow rainfall, rebuild soil, and reconnect communities to the water systems that sustain them.
For some, it may be health. The film explores extreme heat, shade, trees, cooling spaces, and the neighborhood connections that help people prepare for and recover from crisis.
For some, it may be culture. The film honors Indigenous relationships to land, water, food, tradition, and the responsibility to carry knowledge forward.
For some, it may be wildlife. The story follows habitat restoration, native plants, wildlife corridors, and the species that still move through Arizona’s wild places.
For some, it may be children and the future. The film highlights youth stewardship, outdoor learning, emotional resilience, and the responsibility to leave behind something stronger than what we inherited.
Together, these stories reveal something larger: Arizona’s environmental future is also a community future.
Carrying the Work Forward
The organizations featured in Rising Together are not waiting for solutions to arrive from somewhere else.
They are already planting, restoring, teaching, listening, growing, protecting, and rebuilding. They are working in the places they know best, with relationships built over years, and with a deep commitment to the communities they serve.
The next chapter is about helping this work reach farther.
Arizona has an opportunity to become a model for what environmental resilience can look like when it begins with people, place, and belonging.
Reel Earth Films and the Arizona Story
Reel Earth Films is part of the Arizona Community Foundation’s Environmental Accelerator because our work is rooted in the same belief that runs through Rising Together: Arizona’s environmental future depends on connection, education, community, and a deeper understanding of the place we call home.
Beyond this film, Reel Earth Films is developing a landmark natural history series about Arizona’s biomes for Arizona PBS. The series will explore the extraordinary landscapes, wildlife, ecosystems, and environmental stories that make this state one of the most remarkable places in North America.
A major goal of the project is education. Through Arizona PBS and PBS LearningMedia, the series is being developed with the potential to reach K-12 students, educators, families, and communities across the state, helping young people better understand Arizona’s natural world and their relationship to it.
For us, storytelling is not separate from conservation. It is one of the ways people come to care.
Help Make More Stories Like This Possible
Rising Together reflects the kind of work Reel Earth Films was created to do: tell powerful stories about the natural world, elevate the people protecting it, and help turn awareness into meaningful support.
As a nonprofit storytelling organization, Reel Earth Films depends on people who believe that film can do more than inspire. It can educate, connect, mobilize, and help important work reach farther.
If you would like to engage with Reel Earth Films, support future storytelling projects, or help us continue creating films that serve Arizona’s people, wildlife, and landscapes, we would be grateful to connect.
Film Teaser
Rising Together: Belonging Beyond Borders
Synopsis: Across Arizona’s deserts, mountains, and borderlands, communities are working together to restore the landscapes that sustain them. From Indigenous knowledge and river restoration to climate resilience and regenerative agriculture, a diverse coalition of leaders is reimagining what it means to care for the land. As they confront drought, heat, and ecological loss, their efforts reveal a powerful truth: when people come together across cultures and borders, healing the land can also heal the communities who call it home.
Rising Together is a cinematic short that follows Arizonans who are reimagining resilience in the face of climate and ecological challenges.
From rainwater harvesting rooted in tradition, to community food systems, to protecting the wild borderlands, these grassroots efforts point to a shared vision: people and nature thriving side by side.
The work has begun, and the potential is far greater. What if entire regions embraced this model of self-sufficiency and stewardship?
Arizona is ready. The question is: Will you stand with us?
*Rising Together: Belonging Beyond Borders was made possible through a generous grant from the Arizona Community Foundation, whose support helped bring together the stories of communities working to restore Arizona’s landscapes and build a more resilient future.