Connect4Climate's Film4Climate initiative grew out of our Action4Climate documentary film contest of 2013-2014, which gave young filmmakers around the world a chance to make their voices heard on the burgeoning climate crisis. Film4Climate's mission to "green the silver screen" is twofold: the initiative aims to both promote messages of sustainability in the narratives of movies worldwide and to promote sustainable filmmaking practices in the production thereof.
Film4Climate’s mission is embodied in the initiative’s International Charter, a document painstakingly compiled between 2013 and 2018 with inputs from film festivals, film commissions, producers, advocacy groups (such as EcoProd, PGA Green, Green Film Shooting, and Cine-Regio) and various cross-sections of the film industry. In 2019, Film4Climate’s mandate was bolstered when Connect4Climate partner Green Spark, led by Zena Harris out of Vancouver, launched the Creative Industries Pact for Sustainable Action, exhorting those in the creative industries to commit to furthering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and to keeping net global temperature change below 2°C vis-à-vis pre-Industrial levels. The Pact’s many signatories include major universities and the World Economic Forum.
For the past several years, Film4Climate has been hard at work putting the principles behind the Charter and Pact into action, championing climate-positive films such as Slater Jewell-Kemker’s Youth Unstoppable and Jared P. Scott’s The Great Green Wall (starring beloved Malian singer Inna Modja) and hosting sustainability-minded contests like the Action4Climate film competition of 2014, the Global Video Competition of 2016, the #Uniting4Climate VR Pitch Competition in 2017, and Film4Climate’s annual Post-Production Award competition in partnership with Laser Film.
Film4Climate is also a regular contributor to global dialogue on sustainability in film and filmmaking. In February 2020, C4C Program Manager Giulia Braga hosted a panel titled "A Green Light for Green Production" at the first annual European Co-Production Forum, an event in Brussels dedicated to bringing together leading film and TV producers from across the EU for candid discussion of how to collaborate and innovate in the industry moving forward.
