This year’s Tribeca Summer Arts Institute produces “The Green Films” – each urging viewers to think about the consequences of how we use (or misuse) our world.

Driving to the New Age: American Automobiles and You

By Meng Mao, Eli Shalcross, Charlie Shelton, Matt Yaggy

In the 1950’s, America’s media landscape was littered with corporate-sponsored “educational” films about health, nutrition and other topics considered relevant to the general population. Driving to the New Age takes a shot at these early propaganda films by focusing on young Timmy, an impressionable boy who is forced to choose between wrong and right when, in a world where misinformation is rampant, the automobile industry is intent on dazzling him with the “wonderful future” promised by their gas guzzling cars.

The Environmentally Odd Couple

By Celeste Ho, Jesse Medalia-Strauss, J.B. Snyder, Dominic Susca

On a hot summer day in New York City apartment, the power goes out. Two young men with wildly divergent ideas about the consumption of energy are now forced to reconcile their ideas about waste and conservation in a world dependent on electricity. The comic film The Environmentally Odd Couple ponders what it will really take to change one energy abusers errant ways.

Bad Catch

By Pei Xiong Liu, Bernadette Mahoney, Alejandra Martinez, James Moccia

Bad Catch explores the implications of living in a metropolis surrounded by two major rivers and numerous bodies of water. This experimental documentary explores the quality of NYC’s waterways from the perspective of fictional character Mark Finley, a transplanted New Yorker who undergoes a harrowing transformation after eating East River Striped Bass and interviews with actual NYC fisherman, governmental officials and environmental activists.

Operation: Wilt

By Chennelle Bryant-Harris, Kenny Crutchfield, Gabe Gomez, Stephen Scott Scarpulla

Richard, a young man who hates his job, encounters a miraculously talking plant that informs him that the fate of the world rests in his generation’s hands. Operation: Wilt chronicles a young man coming to environmental consciousness through the most unlikely of encounters and addresses the question: what will it take for people to realize the implications of ignoring the environment in today’s world.

Endless City

By Wyatt Maker, Ben Napoli, Chelsea O’Shea

Endless City depicts a young man who is overwhelmed and alienated by the increasingly technologically saturated city. Craig Daniels attempts to reconnect with nature within the city limits and in his quest, travels through a polluted brown-field, through bustling times square, and into tranquil Prospect Park. While taking refuge in Prospect Park he comes to the realization that there must be a balance between technology, nature and society as he realizes his own incapacities in the great outdoors.