Hellbent - live on wild commons
We recently launched a new YouTube channel with our friends over at Impact Media Lab to help solve a huge problem that many independent filmmakers are experiencing - a lack of distribution options! Many amazing nature, environmental and science documentaries have successful festival runs, then just sit on a hard drive never to be seen again. The industry has changed, and we needed to find a solution that supports creators and allows them to continue their craft.
So, we co-founded Wild Commons - a YouTube channel which, through a shared platform with shared marketing efforts, gives these films a home and a way for creators to get paid. So, if you want to watch amazing films and support the people who made them, head to our YouTube channel and click subscribe! We release a new film each month, and short films between. If you don’t want to miss a thing, subscribe to our newsletter here.
Anyway, onto the films…
Hellbent
A small town protects a big salamander and rewrites the rules of who gets a say.
In rural Pennsylvania, a proposed fracking waste injection well threatened two things at once: the only clean drinking water source for 700 people, and the streams that sustain one of the most remarkable creatures in North American waterways, the hellbender salamander. Hellbent tells the story of Grant Township's response, led by two determined women, Judy and Stacy, who refused to accept the terms being handed to them.
What follows is a story about community power and legal imagination. Faced with corporate interests and government inaction, Grant Township took an unexpected step: adopting a Community Bill of Rights that formally recognises the rights of nature as a tool for protection. Co-directed by Justin Grubb and Annie Roth, the film traces how one local fight became something larger, rippling outward from a single watershed into a broader legal and social movement about who gets to decide what happens to a place.
Why this film matters
Hellbent is a film about ordinary people refusing to stay silent, and what that refusal can set in motion. It raises urgent questions about environmental rights, democratic participation, and the power of local action to challenge systems that feel immovable. In a moment when communities everywhere are navigating the intersection of industrial development and ecological survival, this story from a small Pennsylvania township carries implications far beyond its borders.
Head to the Wild Commons website to learn more about the project, why it’s necessary, and explore the films that are currently live.