Carbon explained in an accessible way, a scientist who goes to Siberia to save mammoths and other stories: this is who won Cinemambiente 2022.
The topics are the hottest ones (it should be said) relating to climate change: the documentaries and shorts that have won this twenty-fifth edition of the Turin Cinemambiente Festival they focus on the elements and our impact on the planet. This review, founded in 1998 from the National Cinema Museum and led by the then director Gaetano Capizzithis year saw the participation of 87 titles (films, short films and documentaries) from 25 countries. Here is who has won the prizes of this edition, whose claim is For a green era.
The films awarded in the 2022 edition of Cinemambiente
Carbon – The Unauthorized Biography
Directed by Niobe Thompson And Daniella Ortegathis documentary produced between France, Canada and Australia and in competition at Cinemambiente was awarded the Asja.Energy Award for the best documentary (there were 5 thousand euros up for grabs). The absolute protagonist is carbon: the most cited element of the periodic table which is the basis of life and which is the most recently mentioned at the same time the threat. Through the testimonies of scientists and researchers, its role in history is deepened, from the evolution of the Earth to the revolution determined by fossil fuels, and its future is investigated. To convince the jury the fact that such a complex subject has been made accessible to all. “Science but also poetry and creativity come together in multiple narrative languages, without neglecting the lightness of humor, to make visible what is invisible”.
Pleistocene Park
Honorable mention of the jury for the film by Luke Griswold-Tergis which tells the story of the nature reserve located in the Autonomous Republic of Sacha-Jacutija, in extreme Eastern Russia, precisely Pleistocene Park. Here, in 1996, the geophysicist Sergej Zimov gave birth to his project: to restore the ecosystem of the “mammoth steppe” of the ice age. The documentary investigates the motivations of Zimov, determined to counteract as much as possible the melting of the permafrost and thus averting the effects of global warming, but also the difficulties encountered by him and his son Nikita in such a hostile environment. “What appears to be visionary madness ends up conquering the viewer as something possible and indeed necessary for the common interest in the face of the dramatic effects of climate change” was the comment of the jury.
Haulout
The Terna Award for the best short film1,500 euros, went to the short film directed by brothers Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev, who told the story of the marine biologist Maxim Chaliev. Every autumn for ten years now, Chaliev has moved to the Republic of Yakutiaa province of the Southern Siberia, to study the migrations of walruses, increasingly threatened by melting ice. “We appreciated the narrative dimension capable of destabilizing the gaze, of leaving the images witnessing the events, without the interpretative mediation of the word”.
Going Circular
The public fury of the Cinemambiente Festival, expressed in Iren award (1,500 euros), went to the feature film by the award-winning documentary maker Richard Dale and the manufacturer Nigel Walk: the two in Going Circular question the mechanisms and possibilities ofcircular economy along with four experts including James Lovelock, who was among the first to talk about circularity. Experts explain how to learn something from the synergistic and self-regulating systems of the Earth. If we want to change the course of the environmental history of our planet we must reprogram everything in the name of circularity: from food production to fashion.
Chemical Bros.
There is also an Italian among the winners: Massimiliano Mazzotta was awarded the Environment and Society award established by Arcobaleno Social Cooperative with an investigation into the terrible consequences of fluorite deposits on the environment. Maximilian’s journey starts from Silius mines in Sardinia to reach the Peak District National Park of Derbyshire, Great Britain. Realities that, through witnesses and experts, recount the memory of environmental disasters of the past, of their coexistence with local populations unaware of everything, of the strategies adopted to protect the economic interests of a few at the expense of the community.
Other prizes of the Cinemambiente 2022 edition
Suzanne Crockerdirector of the film First We Eatwon the Casacomune award, set up by the Festival and by Casacomune, School and Actions, for the film or the author who was best able to reflect themes related to spirituality. The prize Star of the Moleestablished by the National Cinema Museum and the Festival, for an artist who through the language of cinema declines themes related to the environment and nature in his work, went to Franco Piavoli. The prize From Earth to Earth of 3 thousand euros offered by Biorepack, for the figure or film that best illustrates soil-related issues, was awarded a Vandana Shiva. The prize Green clapperboardestablished by Festival and from Legambientefor a figure from the world of Italian cinema and entertainment committed to defending the environment, was awarded to Alessandro Gassmann while the La Ghianda literary prizeestablished by the Festival for an author or an author who has expressed a deep and personal relationship with the environment, landscape and nature, has been assigned to Antonella Anedda.
This work is licensed under license Creative Commons Attribution – Non commercial – No derivative works 4.0 International.
Cinemambiente 2022: here are the winners (there is also Alessandro Gassmann)