Public Trust Film - Patagonia

A Film About The Fight for America’s Public Lands

Watch the film

Our public lands and waters are under threat.

As an extinction crisis looms and climate change continues to be one of the greatest threats our planet has ever faced, America’s 640 million acres of public lands support biodiversity and carbon sequestration. It’s essential that we fight for their protection by preventing the slashing of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, fighting the potential permanent destruction of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, and stopping the de facto sale of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—one of the last wild places in America.

Big Sky Documentary Film Fest 2020 Laurel

MSPIFF39 Redefined Official Selection Laurel

Mountainfilm 2020 Laurel - Winner Audience Choice Award

Ashland Independent Film Festival Laurel - 2020 Audience Award Documentary Feature

Freeland Film Festical 2020 Laurel - Offical Selection

Port Townsend Film Festival 2020 Laurel - Official Selection

Camden International Film Festival Laurel

Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival 2020 Laurel - Official Selection

Earthx Film 2020 Laurel - Official Selection

Cleveland International Film Festival Laurel - Official Selection

Woods Hole Film Festival 2020 Laurel - Audience Award Best Documentary Feature

The Filmmakers

David Garrett Byars

David Garrett Byars made his directorial debut at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival with No Man’s Land (Tribeca 2017, Independent Lens), a documentary about the 2016 militia occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge that sparked international headlines. Byars also produced and lensed Massacre River (Hot Docs 2019, ITVS) Suzan Beraza’s film about statelessness in the Dominican Republic.

Jeremy Hunter Rubingh

Jeremy Hunter Rubingh is the producer of Public Trust. He is also a self-made thousandaire and caffeine-dependent life form that has spent the majority of his time on earth working and playing to protect mountains, powder snow, wild fish and wild landscapes. The rest of the time he tries his best to look busy and awesome.

Yvon Chouinard

Yvon Chouinard is an itinerant adventurer, environmental activist and iconoclastic businessman. His company, Patagonia, has sued the Trump administration for its drastic rescission of Bears Ears National Monument. Chouinard is the cofounder of 1 % for the Planet and has been an executive producer of the award-winning documentaries DamNation and Artifishal, as well as of Public Trust.

Robert Redford

Robert Redford is acclaimed as an award-winning actor, producer, director, and champion of independent film. He is also the founder of Sundance Institute, where he has nurtured generations of innovative voices in independent culture through the Institute and Film Festival.

A noted environmentalist, Redford has been an advocate for climate change awareness and clean energy for over 40 years. In 2016 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. He has served as a trustee for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and is the cofounder of The Redford Center with his son James.