Welcome to the Apocalypse – With a Smile!
Ah, fiction and climate anxiety, a pairing as classic as tea and crumpets, or, more appropriately, like Greta Thunberg and a devastating PowerPoint presentation! We’ve been wallowing in dystopias for as long as the planet has been warming, yet here we are still hoping for a spritz of optimism. You know, something to counter the dystopian panic—like having a strong espresso instead of staring into the abyss of our impending doom.
Dystopias have been smacking us in the face with their gloom and doom, and let’s be honest: who hasn’t binge-watched *Years and Years* while reclining on the couch, shoving popcorn into our mouths, while asking ourselves, “Is this the future my grandchildren will inherit?” or “Will they even exist?”
“In international film markets, when you bring a film about the climate crisis, it is understood that it is a disaster movie.” – Elisa Puerto
Thank you, American cinema, for your deep, insightful take on the climate crisis! Who knew that diving buildings or epic battles against nature could be a gross simplification of our collective failure? But here’s the kicker: while our heroes are facing off with monsters (be they CGI or climate-fueled), the real battle rages on in the background—one that actually involves ALL of us. It’s like squabbling about who gets the last piece of cake while the baker’s house is on fire. Cheeky, right?
Can We Please Have Some Optimism?
Lo and behold, Greenpeace has come to save the day! They are hosting the Another Way Film Festival, a dazzling event where hard-hitting documentaries meet optimistic “ecotopias.” Yes, you read that correctly! A shift away from *Mad Max* and all those fancy survivalist fantasies towards stories about communities working together to rescue our planet. Imagine *The Avengers*, but instead of saving New York, they’re planting trees and installing solar panels—much less explosive and far more productive!
“Stories that, being aware of the complexity of the climate crisis, make visible experiences that are real, that are feasible.” – Miguel Garcia
Finally! Let’s take a moment to feast on what’s feasible. Picture a world where ordinary folks don capes, not to battle villains but to create sustainable community gardens or clever energy solutions. We need narratives that reflect our reality—people coming together, solving problems, and perhaps sneaking in a little humor along the way. Because honestly, what better way to talk about ecoanxiety than with a satirical jab or two?
The Power of Stories
Could we possibly turn this ship around? *Climate Spring* is rallying behind this movement by producing stories that challenge the mainstream “us versus them” mentality. By pointing fingers at the *actual* culprits (looking at you, fossil fuel industry), they encourage real climactic comedy gold. Not to roast, but it’s about time we see comedies that address climate justice instead of merely treating the symptoms of climate apocalypse like a bad haircut!
“We believe that in entertainment there is a wide range of plots that deal with climate change.” – Lucy Stone
40 projects? Novel collections? Biopic dramas? It’s a veritable buffet of environmentally conscious storytelling ready to grace our screens with hope instead of despair. And if that isn’t enough, we’ve got small projects like community initiatives—think solar panels on the local bakery while the community gathers for a bake sale. Now that’s something to chew on!
Hope for the Future: Could We Actually Laugh?
Let’s contemplate the bright side for a moment. *The Last of Us* could be sandwiched between comedy and potential activism, proving there’s room for both tragedy and a chance to come together. It’s a narrative tapestry we can weave, showing the world that laughter is an excellent coping mechanism during life’s most serious matters. Because in a world on fire, isn’t it better to dance while the earth sings its steamy little song of climate justice?
“How can you write a realistic scenario of the climate crisis without doing the usual thing?” – Elisa Puerto
Let’s roll up our sleeves and concoct stories that break down the “you versus them” mentality. If a disaster movie can put a face to the panic, then why can’t a tiny comedy or a heartwarming dramedy achieve the same? Perhaps our thrillers must shift from the collapse narrative to one that features a community rallying to plant trees and resurrect our failing ecosystems.
So, my dear friends, rather than binge on doom and gloom, let’s sink our teeth into stories that showcase **collective actions and triumphs!** Let’s reframe our climate narrative, turn up the cheerful tunes, and start drafting those scripts filled with grand plans instead of grand despair. After all, if we can’t laugh about the climate crisis, well… we might just cry.
Who’s with me? Grab your pens, your cameras, and your brightest ideas! It’s time to write our own *eco-fairy tale!*
Fiction has been processing for years what we now call climate anxiety (or ecoansiedad) in the form of dystopias. We’ve already talked about them quite a bit here and anyone reading this can surely recite a few by heart (Years and Years, Mad Maxthe very Spanish Blackout). It is so evident where this panic about the immediate future comes from that both activists and creatives have been wondering for years if it is possible to turn it around. If you can create stories in film or series that call for action against the climate crisis –and related problems ranging from world hunger to the rise of the extreme right– in a way, let’s say, optimistically.
“In international film markets, when you bring a film about the climate crisis, It is understood that it is a disaster movie“, comments the Spanish screenwriter Elisa Puerto. “It is something dominant in the discourse of American cinema and deep down it is a problem, because it is almost always about the hero who faces a collapse of whatever type that has nothing to do with the human being. And the reality of the climate crisis has nothing to do with that, it is a collective issue and it is a phenomenon caused by us. The thing is how we reach an audience mainstream with those ideas, because as a proofreader I have to read many dystopian scripts, it is a dominant genre today… and they are all very similar.”
This Wednesday, October 16, the Another Way Film Festivala film competition dedicated to films about the environment, and which among its parallel activities presents a round table dedicated to Ecotopiaswithin the initiative that Greenpeace has been leading for a few years to promote alternative narratives about the climate crisis to the dystopias of collapse and the utopias of technological optimism. A table in which Elisa Puerto herself participates together with the teacher and screenwriter Jaime Bartolome or the ecomanager of filming Denis Morante.
Miguel Garciacoordinator of the School of Activism at Greenpeace, explains to Climate that their ecotopias – which owe their name to the 1971 novel by Ernest Callenbach, which imagined a 100% sustainable country with the technologies known at that time – seek “stories that, being aware of the complexity of the climate crisis and the limits it has the planet that they allow, to make visible experiences that are real, that are feasible and that are already addressing the climate crisis.”
That is why they have been putting creators from different areas in contact with initiatives such as the Virgen de los Remedios Schoolfrom Arroyomolinos de León, Huelva, converted into a huge photovoltaic plant by becoming an energy community and incorporating panels to its roofs; wave community of agricultural producers Errigorain the Basque Country, which supplies sustainable products close to its area of influence. At the moment they have already given rise to the collective comic Ecotopias. Imagine the future to change the present (Friday, 2024).
A similar idea, but with a more business focus and inserted in the great American entertainment industry, has Climate Springconsultancy and development fund for fiction projects that unites audiovisual professionals and experts on the climate crisis.
Lucy Stonefounder and current CEO, explains to Climate that their work focuses on promoting stories around three axes. “One is climate justice, moving away from stories that blame the majority of the population. “Stories that talk about the root causes of the problem, like the fossil fuel industry or industrial agriculture, and then tell stories of climate justice and accountability.”
The others refer to the energy and social transitiondivided between now and the coming decades. “For example,” he explains, “we are developing stories that show the change that is occurring in different industrial or labor sectors with comedies in the workplace.” As for the near future, the challenge is “world building. “Imagining the future we want to create, showing exciting, beautiful and aspirational worlds on the big screen.”
At the moment Climate Spring participates, directly or indirectly, in 40 series or feature film projects, in addition to launching a series of novels climate science fiction and activate various script development programs or short film awards. “We believe that in entertainment there is still a wide range of plots that deal with climate change, and the objective is to not move away from traditional genres, using comedy, romance or drama.”
Curiously, in this report – which talks about people who want to make films about the climate crisis – the two most established projects that we have mentioned are an already published comic and a collection of novels. “Maybe what we need is that, a best-seller that is a climate utopia or an ecotopia and for someone to adapt it and make it fashionable,” reflects Elisa Puerto.
She herself is currently seeking to finance her first feature film as a director, a film by cli-fi or climate science fiction, and highlights a recent Spanish production such as In the enda series by David Sainz and Enrique Lojo (of which he warns us that he has not seen the end). “It falls into some more typical things about the collapse, but in the end it is a comedy that reflects on all those topics from a place that wants to be popular, reach many people. The path is there,” he adds.
Yes, he has seen a certain optimism emerge even in dystopian series, on paper, in this case The Last Of Usin which “it may be influenced by the fact that it comes from a video game, which is a story, but one in which you have to participate. A call to action is easier this way, and I understand that it spreads to the audiovisual adaptation. Even depending on the format you have to cooperate with other players.”
In that sense, he confesses that he has “broken his head a lot thinking about How can you write a realistic scenario of the climate crisis without doing the usual thing?because it is also boring for the public, and I think part of it has to do with revising our vocabulary.” For example, “the word ‘collective’, which now sounds old, like something from my grandfather, is fundamental. If you suddenly show the consequences of a hurricane like the one in Florida, or a town that could be left without electricity due to the energy crisis, don’t just focus on the appearance of rats or diseases or the fact that they fight among themselves. Sample how together they are all capable of making solutions which, furthermore, we can see, because many are in the real world.”
