DURHAM, N.C. – “Good Things Await,” a Danish film about an octogenarian farmer’s lifelong battle to preserve a rare breed of heirloom dairy cattle and run his family farm sustainably and ethically in the face of increased pressures from corporate agriculture and government bureaucracy, was awarded the Nicholas School Environmental Award at the 2015 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

The film, directed by Phie Ambo, received the honor at the Durham-based festival’s awards ceremony yesterday.

The Nicholas School Environmental Award is sponsored by 91’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

The award has been presented annually to the documentary at Full Frame that best depicts the conflict between our drive to improve living standards through development and modernization, and the imperative to preserve both the natural environment that sustains us and the heritages that define us.

This year, for the first time, the Awards Jury also presented an Honorable Mention Award to “Overburden,” a documentary about Appalachian coal mining, directed by Chad Stevens.

Steven’s film tells the story of two women – one a pro-coal activist, the other an anti-coal environmentalist – who join forces to raise awareness of coal mining’s human and environmental consequences in the wake of a deadly mine disaster.

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, www.fullframefest.org, is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema. Each year it features showings of more than 100 films, as well as panels and discussions between filmmakers, film professionals and the public. The festival is a program of Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies.

The Nicholas School Environmental Award is part of the Duke Art and the Environment Initiative, launched by the Nicholas School in 2009 to forge stronger connections between the arts and the environment.

You can learn more about “Good Things Await” at /.

You can learn more about “Overburden” at /.

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