film industryIn an environment where millions of people watch movies and TV series every day, it plays a very important role in encouraging social changes by ensuring the visibility of the facts. climate change wave biodiversity lossSometimes they are there without us realizing it.
Aware of this responsibility and necessity Learn to explain problems like the climate crisis “well”Galician production company Portocabo (creator of series such as ‘Rapa’ or ‘Hierro’) and the European Climate Foundation (ECF) have launched a pilot project to train screenwriters on the subject.
“We saw this The entire existing narrative around climate change has been a narrative of collapse that immobilizes and produces eco-anxiety.. “We realized that it didn’t make much sense to do it this way, and that it was better to picture other types of futures that were possible as well as desirable,” Miriam Zaitegui, ECF’s director in Spain, told EFEVerde. .
The aim, he adds, is not just to reach “those who believe” or to tell people what to do, but “to raise their awareness, to make them aware of what is going on.”
Therefore, the approach is not to make a TV series or movie directly about climate change, but rather “it exists” in the entertainment industry. responsibility and it shows the reality we live in,” according to Zaitegui.
Raising awareness as such has a limited scope and scope. “Approximately transcend awareness so people begin to embrace the reality that is there but perhaps they do not feel or relate to their daily lives.
A good plot twist in this sense might be, for example, explaining that machines in a hospital stopped working due to a heat wave, “something that could actually happen to you,” he explained.
leading movements
According to Portocabo’s Content Director Nina Hernández, who advocates reflecting the movements that transform society in productions, culture has tried to be close to reality and show it since its origin. combating climate change, gender equality, integrationetc.
“As we depicted leading movements“We normalize the situation, which is not yet common but is already part of reality,” Hernández said, citing as an example one of Hierro’s main characters, Nico, a child with cerebral palsy, of “a different reality” than that of other children.
It is important to know these facts well and how to bring them to the big screen, and for this purpose Portocabo takes advice from Climate Spring, a British non-governmental organization specializing in climate. Bringing the “ecological focus” to audiovisual productions.
“We give them the scripts and they suggest opportunities to introduce climate change at different levels of importance, both as plot points and as subtle elements, small anecdotes, actions or characters that can be incorporated into an already existing story.” even just on a visual level, according to Hernández.
Screenwriter Carlota Dans said, “They help us find these gaps (…) They have more knowledge and help us see these little opportunities. Without this advice, things would be difficult.”
This guide is necessary because, on the one hand, equality It’s something that comes “natural” to him because he experiences it, it’s not so easy to include the climate crisis because even though he’s very concerned about the environment, he lacks knowledge, just like when he’s working on a crime or forensic thriller.
corporate responsibility
In a conversation with the four, Hernández announced that they were working on a co-production with Germany, where the story is set in the Canary Islands and features an oil platform and a green hydrogen production project with offshore wind in the background.
“They helped us deepen and integrate elements of corporate responsibility“In this case, companies working in the energy sector pollute and are not responsible for the cleaning, dismantling or recycling of platforms at sea,” he said.
The ultimate goal should be to convey the message in a way that the audience will not reject. without disastersHernández insisted that the issue arose naturally and thus there was learning that led to normalization, and Zaitegui added: Climate change already affects every aspect of life This is a “versatile” theme.
“There is a growing expectation for this content to be added across the platforms and networks we work with. Join forces and work together to ensure a positive response to the climate crisis“, Hernández concluded.
Therefore, another purpose of this purpose is Pilot experience The lead actors stated that this was to prepare training material containing everything learned so that they could share it with other production companies and screenwriters.