
At the launch of the European Film Club, director Marten Persiel explains how film can provide an emotional vocabulary to talk about climate anxiety

On 5 November 2023, FERA had the pleasure to attend the launch of the European Film Club at Cinema Galeries in Brussels, Belgium.
This is a film literacy initiative led by the European Film Academy, and supported by Creative Europe MEDIA. However, the masterminds behind the idea are a group of teenagers who previously participated in the Young Audience Awards and cooked up the idea of a film club co-created for and by young cinephiles with a curated catalogue of European films to watch and discuss with likeminded peers from all over Europe.
This past Sunday was their big day: Their idea finally came to life with a simultaneous film screening and Q & A in several European countries, from Portugal to Poland, from Ireland to Italy. The young initiators led through the event like old troupers, the energy and heart they put into this was palpable.
The film club’s launch was organised in the framework of the Young Audience Film Weekend and the Young Audience Film Summit 2023 on “The Future of Humanity”.
This is also the core theme of the film that was screened at the event: Everything Will Change by German screen director Marten Persiel. The sci-fi film is set in a dystopian and dark 1954. A couple of young people find out about the animals that once lived on Planet Earth and went extinct, as a result of humanity’s egotism and unwillingness to change.
On the occasion of the European Film Club launch, FERA had the chance to interview the filmmaker about his movie and his involvement in the initiative:
What inspires you about the European Film Club?
The initiative tries to bring together European audiences, especially young audiences. I am very proud and moved that they chose my film and invited me to come to Brussels. It is an honour to be here, and the people are amazing. The kids who are running the event are so good – I’m in love.
Your movie, Everything Will Change, deals with issues such as the loss of biodiversity. Many young people struggle with climate anxiety these days. How do you think films like yours can help?
I think, one thing that movies can do, is to provide a vocabulary to things that people might not have a vocabulary for. Especially new anxieties that we might develop, for example once we understand that biodiversity is being lost and that the climate will never return to the way we know. That creates anxieties. And what we tried to do with this film was to at least provide an emotional vocabulary. So people can say: “Remember that film? That’s exactly how I am feeling.”
Why are film literacy and film literacy initiatives important to you?
I’m a cinephile. I love cinema, this is what I do, what I believe in and what I am willing to fight for. These are the 20s and it is a difficult time for cinema. There are always other things that claim people’s attention. And I believe that sitting in a dark room with others, who watch the same thing, with their telephones switched off, is a very pure form of experiencing thought. And of experiencing text, because films are also text in a way. Experiencing ideas in the cinema is different than scrolling through Instagram in your bathroom. It is the Champions League of watching movies.
Read the European Film Academy’s press release here.
Watch the trailer for the European Film Club here.