It’s Time for Environmental Short Films to Have Their Heyday
Climate change has become such a complex topic, with so many intricacies needed to fix it — let alone addressing those who still deny it — one way to raise more awareness is educating the world’s population. You could argue that Hollywood began its role almost 20 years ago, with disaster movies such as “The Day After Tomorrow” or documentaries like “An Inconvenient Truth”, which had critical and commercial success. As an independent animator, with no financial backing or support, I have taken the approach of targeting a much younger audience with my animated short film, “Cool For You”. It’s based on a book of the same title that teaches our youngest learners about global warming without being sensationalist. It gives tangible ways — to a target audience of 4–9 year olds — to help our planet, like “drive cars less”. Despite its acceptance into over 40 film festivals so far, not a single one of the over 1,700 media outlets contacted, would share the film online for an Earth Day celebration this month.
Traveling to different film festivals (and even using public transportation to do so!), has given me a lot of insight into what audiences want. My film has frequently been programmed with other “science” or “environmental” or “global warming” films. There is so much amazing content out there, but ends up being seen by such a small audience, since film festivals that aren’t Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, Berlin or Cannes aren’t able to draw humongous crowds. One of the most interesting film festivals my film screened at is the Good Natured Conservation Optimism Festival, held in Oxford, England. Two of the most entertaining and educational films I’ve seen in the last year were screened there: Yellowstone 88: Song of Fire, and The Invention Of Less. My film, “Cool For You”, with its positive message fit nicely in with this lineup of films. However, optimism and positive messages are not sensationalist and not what gets noticed most in the news and media.
One of the best festivals my film was part of that really understands the importance of educational films related to the environment and global warming is the One Earth Film Festival, in Chicago. Their mission is “Through sustainability-themed films and facilitated discussion — educate, raise awareness, and inspire the adoption of solution-oriented sustainable actions.” I really felt the sincerity of this mission at the hybrid screening I attended of my film, along with three other films in March of 2023.
The event was held locally at a public library in a suburb of Chicago, but there was an opportunity to engage in a chat for the filmmakers and audience members watching from home. At the end of the screening, the early childhood educator running the event asked those in the audience what they learned. It was such a thrill for me when two of the online audience members piped into the chat two things they learned from my film! I was so excited, I even took a screenshot of the chat window, seen below:
“This is the sun, it’s a star” is the opening line of my film, and CO2 is mentioned multiple times in my film! I asked Anya and Lillian’s mom how old Anya and Lillian were, and they said 8 and 6 respectively. Here was very real evidence that my film was teaching something important and the children were paying attention.
With the rise of so many digital platforms and so much content being created, there’s so much competition for eyeballs! I remember once hearing that the founder of Netflix said his top competitor to Netflix was actually sleep. Sleep!?!? What if our planet is headed for disaster but we’re either asleep at the wheel or just watching another disaster movie on Netflix? The U.N.’s latest climate report, released last month, could not be a louder wake up call. It’s time that media outlets use their platform as a way to educate the public — of all ages — with any type or duration of media about global warming. Apple TV jumped into the game last month with its release of a new TV series, called “Extrapolations”, that despite a star-studded cast, has been met with mediocre reviews. Incidentally, “Extrapolations” and my film were both screened at the Environmental Film Festival at Yale earlier this month.
My film, “Cool For You”, is an absolute passion project if there ever was one. It was my idea to begin with to contact the author and illustrator of the book to turn it into a film. It was my antiquated computer that was pushed to the limits while I animated it. It was my score that I composed and edited for the film. It was even my own children (plus my husband and I) that became the voices used for all the characters. I thought that after dozens of film festivals, it would have an easier time getting a platform to share with wider audiences. Until that time comes, you’ll have to go to Missoula, Montana in April, or Aosta, Italy in May, or Singapore in June to catch “Cool For You” playing at film festivals in those cities. And if you can walk or take a bike — or use public transportation to get there — even better!
