North Carolina’s sustainable forestry movement is a rare gesture towards community-based climate action. Seen through the stories of two Black families who fight to preserve their land and generational legacy, Family Tree’s cinema vérité approach reveals the colossal task of maintaining the land while navigating family dynamics, unscrupulous developers and changing environmental needs. Each challenge is faced with diligence and integrity, while the forest itself becomes a kind of character in this drama about its own survival.