03/11/2014 - Young directors from all over the world talk about climate change during Action4Climate

The documentary competition Action4Climate, which since 2011 has been awarding documentaries by young directors from 14 to 35 years of age with a view to increasing global cooperation on the issues of communication and climate change, this year granted first prize to Portuguese Gonçalo Tocha, with his provocative The Trail of Tale. This evocative short describes a letter written in the future and delivered to our modern day society: a harsh warning to act against climate change before it's too late (read more in Cineuropa Shorts). Second prize of 10,000 dollars was won by Bulgarian Dobrin Kashavelov with his work Global Warning and third prize went to American director Nathan Dappen with Snows of the Nile.

“I'm so proud to have been selected as winner of Action4Climate. I really hope that my film will help people to understand that we have to act now in order to protect our future” said Gonçalo Tocha. And that's precisely the objective of the competition – promoted by the Italian Ministry for the Environment and by the World Bank in collaboration with over 200 knowledge partners – born in September 2011.

As for the category dedicated to youngest directors (14-17 years), the award went to the wonderful short animation film The Violin Player by young Argentine director Francina Ramos, who stated: “What an incredible honour! I'm so happy. I hope that The Violin Player rattles people's conscience and urges them to take action against climate change”. Second and third prize went to Facing the Flood by Swiss Constantin Huet and to It’s Easy if You Try by Georgian Tura Tegerashivili.

In addition the jury, chaired by famous Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci and made up of professionals like Atom Egoyan, Marc Forster, Mika Kaurismaki, Fernando Meirelles, Mira Nair, Bob Rafelson, Walter Salles, Pablo Trapero, Wim Wenders, Rose Kuo, Cynthia Lopez, Rachel Kyte, given the very high quality of the documentaries received, considered it appropriate to award a special prize to Balud, the debut work by Filipino Panx Solajes.

What's more, network users were able to select their winner: the most popular video voted by the Connect4Climate community was Brazilian Pachamama, a documentary that describes how climate change is affecting the lives of the inhabitants of the state of Sao Paulo.

The winners were announced on 30 October in Copenaghen, during the annual Sustania Award Ceremony held at the Danish capital's Royal Theatre.

(Translated from Italian)