The 12th Annual Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival kicks off in Toronto on October 12 with the green carpet premiere for the very entertaining Revenge of the Electric Car (follow-up to Who Killed the Electric Car?), and will close on October 16 with the Ryan Reynolds-narrated film The Whale.

Featuring five days of galas, film screenings, workshops and more, Planet In Focus will once again shine a spotlight on provocative subjects ranging from rising sea levels, slash-and-burn agriculture, the globalized food trade, desertification, glacial recession and how the generation of coal and nuclear energy are transforming global land and seascapes.

In 2006, thousands of new electric cars were purposely destroyed by the same car companies that built them. Today, less than five years later, the electric car is back… with a vengeance. In the highly entertaining documentary REVENGE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR <--link for trailer, director Chris Paine (Who Killed the Electric Car?) gets extraordinary access behind the closed doors of Nissan, GM, and the Silicon Valley start-up Tesla Motors to chronicle the story of the global resurgence of electric cars.

THE WHALE, executive produced by Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johannson and narrated by Ryan Reynolds, tells the true story of Luna, a baby orca who gets separated from his family and starts to make friends with humans on the rugged West Coast of Vancouver Island. The
film is produced and shot by Suzanne Chisholm.

“I am delighted to have these two powerful films bookend our festival,” says Sarah Margolius, Executive Director of Planet in Focus. “They embody the often contradictory forces at play in debates about the state of our planet. One is a provocative documentary about the quest to develop a zero emission automobile, which will help to end our society’s reliance on fossil fuels, and the other is a majestic personal tale of how a lone, lost baby whale reveals the difficulties of wildlife protection in the face of shrinking natural habitats. There is truly something for everyone at this year’s festival.”

This year, Planet in Focus will shine a spotlight on the theme of landscapes, looking at contemporary film- and videomakers who are challenging and redefining our changing perceptions of landscape.

The full program for the festival is available here.