SAVING THE OCEANS: Ian Hinkle’s film “Reaching Blue” is among the offerings at this year’s Princeton Environmental Film Festival, opening Thursday and running through March 29.

Susan Conlon had some specific aims in mind when she began planning this year’s Princeton Environmental Film Festival. Opening at the Princeton Public Library Thursday and running through March 29, the ninth annual festival of films and speakers on a sustainable theme meets most of those goals set by Ms. Conlon, a librarian and the festival’s founder.

“We wanted to infuse creative input into the festival,” she said. “We were really looking at how to enhance the local creative involvement. We also wanted to connect with community partners. We wanted to expand — not necessarily making it bigger, but making it better with greater youth participation.”

By showing one of the films simultaneously at the library and the Princeton Garden Theatre, and by collaborating with Princeton University, Ms. Conlon has fulfilled one goal. Initiating a student film competition completes two others. “We’re expanding the reach, doing more but at the same time keeping things in the scope of what we’ve done in the past,” she said.

The festival opens with Angel Azul, a film about eco-artist Jason DeCaires Taylor’s attempt to draw attention to the depletion of coral reefs across the world. His statues, which create artificial reefs that provide a habitat for marine life, also serve as an underwater museum that raises awareness of the plight of oceans. Also focused on the sea is Reaching Blue, Ian Hinkle’s exploration of the Salish Sea and the challenges faced by our coastal waters.

In Just Eat It, filmmakers Grant Baldwin and Jen Rustemeyer explore food waste and how billions of dollars of “good food” is thrown away each year in North America, where one in 10 people live with food insecurity. Antarctic Edge: 70 Degrees South follows a team of scientists who live a life at sea in a race to understand climate change in the world’s fastest winter-warming place. Project Wild Thing shows how filmmaker David Bond made it his mission to encourage families to spend more time outside instead of in front of the television screen.

Filmmakers will be on hand for numerous programs, giving talks and answering questions following the screenings. Among them are Marcy Cravat for Angel Azul, Jared Flesher for Field Biologist, George McCollough and Anna Savoia for No Pipeline Say the Friends of Nelson, Todd Darling for Occupy the Farm, and several others.

There are events specifically geared to children and families. The animated feature film Song of the Sea will be screened. The PEFF Sustainability Bowl allows children in grades 3-6 to test their knowledge in categories related to the natural world. Local author and naturalist Jared Rosenbaum leads “The Puddle Garden” story time and rain garden presentation.

This year’s festival includes more films that came in as entries rather than films that Ms. Conlon and colleagues sought out. “Filmmaking overall has become more accessible for people, so that’s one reason,” Ms. Conlon said. “But the main thing is that we’re recognized as a place for emerging filmmakers to show their work. They want to be in our festival. We’re lucky.”