Film by Cece King '23 at DOC NYC Reimagines Climate Resilience

An award-winning documentary by Cece King '23 reframes climate resilience through the lived experience of a remote Chilean island community.

Si La Isla Quiere (Island Willing), her 30-minute debut film, screens this month at DOC NYC, America's largest documentary festival, which runs Nov. 12–20 in New York City, with online streaming through Nov. 30. The film won the Audience Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival this fall.

Set on Robinson Crusoe Island, off the coast of Chile, Si La Isla Quiere follows a family as new conservation policies threaten their way of life and they work to protect a culture of environmental stewardship that has shaped the island for generations.

"My film pushes back against familiar doomsday climate narratives," King says. "Instead, it's an intimate portrait of what it means to live with nature. Traditional Western models of conservation that separate people from nature often carry histories of displacement and create a legacy of distance that ultimately destabilizes ecosystems and communities. The film demonstrates how climate resilience doesn't come from controlling a landscape, but from a deeply rooted sense of place."

King's journey to the island began unexpectedly in 2023, when her original plan to document conservation efforts in the Galápagos fell through amid an intensifying El Niño. Soon after, she received an invitation to Robinson Crusoe Island—a place she had never heard of.

What she found was a community whose bond with their extraordinarily biodiverse environment runs so deep that the saying "God willing" becomes "Island willing"—as if the island itself were a living presence.

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