Sandra believes that fracking (a natural gas extraction process the drills horizontally through the Earth and shatters the bedrock with water and toxic chemicals) contaminates the environment and threatens our health. For the past thirty-five years, Sandra has been trying to protect people’s heath by encouraging us to protect the environment. But her efforts have always failed. Now, as fracking threatens to come into her rural community in upstate New York, Sandra must succeed. She believes her children’s lives depend on it.

Shot over the last year of the historic fight against fracking in New York, Unfractured offers an intimate perspective on an epic battle. We watch as Sandra debates the gas industry, delivers fiery rally speeches, and marches alongside other protestors. But when Sandra realizes that scientific evidence alone is not enough to win a ban, she visits anti-fracking activists in Romania, who have inspired her from afar. In Romania, she is trailed by unmarked cars and pepper sprayed by police. Back at home and motivated by her experiences abroad, Sandra joins with her neighbours to lead a civil disobedience campaign, is arrested for blockading a gas storage site, and is hauled away to jail.

Unlike other films on the issue, this documentary is not a polemic on the harms of fracking. Instead, this observational documentary is an intimate look at one activist’s convictions, hopes, and sacrifices. Ultimately, UNFRACTURED takes us through a battle of astonishing international significance and into the life and mind of a complicated and compelling woman, asking us to consider the risk and reward of activism.