FERA workshops new sustainable filmmaking initiative at Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International

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A delegation of FERA board members travelled to Frankfurt, Germany on April 20, 2023 for a day of events hosted by the Lichter Filmfest to workshop and discuss its new flagship sustainable filmmaking initiative. 

What’s it about?

The Eco Movie Manifesto initiative aims to bake sustainability into the DNA of audiovisual stories from the moment synapses connect to form them.

Currently maximum “greening” effort is first applied during audiovisual production: too late for stories that already commit tonnes of CO2 to our atmosphere in their telling. The Eco Movie Manifesto goes upstream: from the dawn of script development, screen directors will champion diverse stories that can be told with minimal environmental impact.

Inspired by Dogme 95 and the Slow Food movement, working screen directors on the FERA board have drawn up “Vows of Sustainability” – restrictions for directors designed to positively simulate creativity and cultural diversity in addition to reducing carbon emissions of audiovisual production.

FERA plans to promote the “Vows of Sustainability” and the ethos that informs them to its 20,000 strong European screen directors community. It will provide detailed guidance for screen directors to become Eco-Leaders, while connecting with professional and trade organizations across the value chain to raise awareness on the key role to be played by filmmakers in greening our industry, and hopefully get inspired by discussions triggered by the Manifesto.

Workshop and Roundtable at the Lichter Filmfest to get the ball rolling

The day’s events, moderated by Michael Gubbins, started with a closed door workshop set to discuss FERA’s Eco Movie Manifesto Vows of sustainability with participants including filmmakers, producers, film fund representatives as well as other film professionals from across Europe, followed by a public roundtable “The Politics of Artistic Freedom and of Sustainability: how can we inspire European Filmmakers to Create Sustainably?”

Speakers Bill Anderson, British Filmmaker & FERA Chair of the board; Martijn Winkler, Dutch Filmmaker & FERA board member; Séverine Petit, Green Film Lab project manager; Véronique Pevtschin, TheGreenshot CEO and Patrick Schaaf, Hessen Film & Medien Head of Strategic Development / Communications will discuss sustainability not only as a trend, but as a core necessity that encompasses social, cultural and environmental aspects. What do filmmakers really need to go green? How do we make sustainable filmmaking more accessible, whilst maintaining creative freedom and cultural diversity? Can sustainability positively inspire creativity?

 

Replay of the roundtable available here: