Pitching sessions #Film4Change: the projects

In order to support creation and storytelling about major environmental issues, and inspired by our friends from La Fabrique du Récit led by Magali Payen from the #OnEstPrêt collective as well as Cyril Dion's "Resist and Create" forum on May 17th 2019 in Cannes, the festival have once again offered pitching sessions as part of the 2020 professional program. 

Several great stories have started on these #Film4Change pitching sessions organized by the festival for the past 3 years. For example, the first pitching session in 2018, led to a commitment from Ushuaïa TV on the film "Watt the fish" which is committed to the fight against electric fishing with Claire Nouvian's association Bloom. It was broadcast at the beginning of July 2019 on the channel as a bonus.

 This pitching session on June 18 was attended by an amazing panel of professionals: 

> Christophe Sommet - Head of the TF1 Group's Thematic Pole & Ushuaia TV

> Xavière Farrer Hutchison - Head of Environment and Climate Policy for France Télévisions

> Pascal Signolet - General Delegate and Founder of the Festival Atmosphères

> Delphine MANOURY -  Head of documentary programs for TV5 Monde

> Pascal Grihault - Director of the Normandy "Génération Durable" Film Festival

> Aurélie Marx - Coordinator of the digital offer Sciences and Knowledge ARTE

Animation: Laurence Lafiteau - Producer - Magala Productions

Four projects were finally selected to be pitched live on our social media on June 18th. 

 THE PROJECTS:

GENERATION EARTH by Laure Modesti-Jubin and Marie Dumont

We are two, two women committed to environmental and educational issues. We are also a collective. A collective of actors, partners and friends of the project who wish to further the issue of another education for our world - we have the official support of UNESCO, Foundation for Environmental Education, Sparknews, CliMates, Office for Climate Education. We wrote this documentary because it has become essential and urgent for us to act for the environment and for our own future. As specialists in education, we want to explore this previously unseen challenge: how to become a society that is more respectful of nature and life? Our future depends on it. We want to go beyond the catastrophic ecological observation. We want to offer solutions, change the way we look at things, and offer concrete ways to start thinking about the world differently. We want to tell the stories of those enthusiastic, dreamy and pragmatic educators and students who have already begun to build this different world, this better world, more respectful of our heritage and our future. We propose a series of films about innovative schools that put the environment and the link to nature at the heart of learning. Beyond the film, we also want to help viewers get involved in the cause and make an impact.

Length: 4 x 52 min

Country: France

THE MAGICAL WORLD OF MOSS by Jean-Philippe Teyssier and Bruno Victor-Pujebet

Which living organism is the source of all life on earth? Having survived all of the great extinctions, the worst climatic tragedies, volcanic eruptions and even nuclear contamination which living organism’s biological characteristics are closest to immortality?

It is moss, also called bryophytes by botanists. Moss is omnipresent on the surface of the earth: in the shade of deep continental or tropical forests, in arid deserts, on the ice pack, in the savannah, the taiga or even the Arctic steppe.

Moss has a dreamy quality that captures our imagination. However, as soon as it reaches the cities and zones demarcated and conquered by mankind,they are deemed threatening, and undesirable.

THE MAGICAL WORLD OF MOSS tells the story of this plantlife, reviled in Europe yet deified in Japan. What are these shapeless, crawling mosses to which we pay such little attention? This featherlight and underestimated organism has exceptional story to tell us about the world, science and cultures. This film will trace the history of this organism from the insignificant little plant to the immense symbol as evocative and grand as a constellation. THE MAGICAL WORLD OF MOSS is a philosophical ode to moss, documenting the substantial power of nature and resituating man to his rightful position.

Country: France

CHILDREN OF WATER by Joy Penroz and Sylvain Grain

In the four corners of the world, the children of thousand-year-old civilizations tell us how the legacy of their ancestors today represents formidable answers to the greatest ecological challenge of all: water.

Heritage can bring solutions to a more sustainable future. According to the UN, at least one in four people are likely to live in a country affected by freshwater shortages by 2050. In Children of Water, kids from all over the world discover precious knowledge coming from ancient civilizations to protect the most important treasure left to them by their ancestors: water. Each episode will be located in a different country, will focus on one specific water conservation tradition and will feature one main character (between 8 and 13 years old) who will raise the awareness of its community about the necessity to revive these techniques. The first episode will take place in the jungle of Yucatan in Mexico, the 2d on the island of Rapa Nui, Chile, the third in the mountains of Cusco in Peru. The dunes of the Sahara Desert, the rice paddies of China and the roman aqueducts in Italy are still under discussion.

Length: 6x26'/52'

Country: France/Chile

THE LANDSCAPE OF LIFE by Sandor Poppinga

The goal of this film is to observe and inform about a rather unknown and remote place with a key problem that is exemplary for many regions in the world: Indigenous peoples and communities play a fundamental role in caring for our planet. Around the world they have been developing and applying their customary laws, governance systems, knowledge and practices to ensure they can survive in harmony with Mother Earth.

So do the Karen people in Myanmar who call their territories the “Landscape of Life”. Their original habitat is Myanmar´s Tanintharyi Region. It is a 2.5 million hectares wide bastion of biodiversity. It extends over an area from the forested borderlands in the east, to vast mangrove forests and  hundreds of island ecosystems in the Andaman Sea to the west of most Southern Myanmar. The region is home to one of the largest remaining expanses of intact low-elevation evergreen forest in Southeast Asia, a stronghold for globally threatened and endangered species including Asian elephants, tigers, tapirs and pangolins. This makes it to an area of global importance. The Karen have managed this landscape according to traditional knowledge and practices for generations. They have mobilized to protect it  from the large-scale oil palm and mining projects that have expanded across  the region since the national wide ceasefire agreement and Myanmar’s opening for foreign investors.

Today this indigenous conserved land is threatened twice: by expanding agribusiness and mining projects on one side,  and foreign NGO considered national parks and governmental conservation plans that do not respect the needs of the Karen people on the other. It is time  respect and support the efforts and initiatives of the indigenous people by include them in questions of land use instead of establishing large protected areas, which cut them off from their ancestral territories. 

This film will cinematically portray how the Karen communities value their forests, rivers and herbal medicine areas. How they take care about mangroves, wildlife, hot springs, bamboo, fish sanctuaries and the ocean. We will investigate if and how far the international conservation organizations, international financial institutions and governmental authorities collaborate with the indigenous communities. This film will not be the place to judge. The documentary will oppose the approach of the Karen people to those of the Myanmar government and  international organizations.

Length: 45'

Country: Austria