Now in its 6th year, the Byron Bay International Film Festival has established a reputation for dynamic programming. This reputation is built on the festivals ability to pull together a captivating, stimulating and entertaining dose of screen culture. But there two stand out genres for which both the festival, and Byron Bay, are best known. Surf/street culture, and conservation/the environment. Screening over 10 days, from 2-11 March , further programming and ticketing information will be available in the lead up to the festival at www.bbff.com.au.

Here’s our top picks from their enviro programme:

Manufacturing Stoke. Surf. No other sport is so intrinsically linked to nature. And yet, in becoming the multi-billion dollar industry it is today, a great paradox has arisen. Surfers are directly connected to the earth’s pulse and yet a majority of the materials used are environmentally toxic. Manufacturing Stoke, is an introspective look into the surfing culture’s struggle for positive environmental change. Follow this link to the movie trailer.

As you know, we’re a sucker for funky lookin bird houses. This little selection caught our eye.

Back in 2008, around 20 international artists and designers came together to create habitats for threatened British species from recycled materials for a charity auction in London. The brief was set by environmental organisation, Adventure Ecology and auction house, Phillips de Pury & Company, as an attempt to upcycle the auction house’s waste in a creative way.

The paper, plastic and wood discarded in the process of packing, moving and installing art works and exhibitions was up-cycled to create habitats for the rapidly declining numbers of bird, bat and bee species in urban areas.

Not sure how practical they are, but we love anyway. :)

The little Chromatic Typewriter, is a conceptual art piece using a modified 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter.

According to the artist, Washington based painter Tyree Callahan, ‘it has started some great discussions on the translation of art into words and words into art. Folks with synesthesia like it too’.

For me the idea of being able to type in paint, or paint in type is genius. And the flow of the colour wheel across the keyboard is the kind of rainbow magic that makes my heart sing. Enjoy.

Hauntingly beautiful, the artworks of Steffan Dam are not all that they seem.

Originally trained as a toolmaker, Steffen has been working with glass for over 25 years. Blowing, casting, and grinding by hand, he ‘presides over chance’ and traps in perpetuity.

His artworks suggest the elusive and fragile shapes, colours, and textures of nature, specifically underwater life forms such as embryonic shellfish, jelly fish, and other invertebrates. But they are in fact an illusion, a suggestion, an otherworldly biology lab.

The artist describes his process of glass making, ‘To me, a garden is a metaphor for everything unregulated. I cultivate the garden, but then there are so many other factors – slugs, wind, frost, sun and rain. It also depends whether I sow too early, too late, or just at the right time..... The garden is under my control and out of control at the same time....... I simply preside over chance. It is just like the process of forming glass’.