From the marvellous images of preserved flora and fauna in James Cameron’s Avatar1 to the disquieting dystopias of Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green2, the seventh art has established itself as a witness to and actor in environmental issues. By conveying messages through emotion, cinema has become a catalyst for collective awareness of environmental challenges. Its influence extends not only to members of civil society, but also to international institutions such as the European Union.
The American film industry as an inspiration for European policies
Cinema has become a geopolitical tool for environmental protection. It was the American film industry in particular that imported this theme to the European public sphere. The early 2000s are a good example of this process. In 2004, Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow 3 aroused the curiosity of European cinema-goers, breaking box-office records in European cinemas. The futuristic story depicts a world in the grip of brutal cooling, with the elements and natural disasters unleashing against humanity. Europe is presented as being devastated by immense snowstorms. The American dystopia generated a wave of fear about environmental issues on a global scale.
Science fiction is certainly fear-inducing, but it still maintains a certain distance between the present and the dystopian future. That’s why it’s not the only film genre to take on the environment. In 2006, the disaster documentary An Inconvenient Truth4 hit the big screen. It was directed by Davis Guggenheim and scripted by Al Gore, the former vice-president of the United States. Here, the individual duty of a politician is transformed into a real collective awareness. The documentary was so successful that it won the Oscar for Best Documentary Film in 2007, and Al Gore was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the IPCC, that same year for his commitment to the fight against climate change. An Inconvenient Truth has had a major influence on European filmmakers, who are also keen on their part in raising public awareness of environmental issues. In this respect, the documentary was a source of inspiration for French filmmaker Yann Arthus- Bertrand’s 2009 documentary Home5.
Against this backdrop of collective awareness of environmental issues, the European Union made a political commitment to the subject. The influence of the many films and documentaries released in the 2000s, alongside the growing number of scientific studies – the most famous of which are still those of the IPCC – have had an impact on European policies. In the 2000s and 2010s, European politicians worked alongside experts to address citizens’ environmental concerns. It is in this context that in 2019, the Green Deal was officially presented by the European Commission. The Green Deal is a set of ambitious policies aimed at achieving the primary objective of climate neutrality by 2050.
Raising awareness through cinema, mobilizing civil society
As mentioned above, cinema can be used to reach the general public, and thus to mobilize members of civil society. Indeed, the various cinematographic works, whether fictional or documentary, move the public and try to awaken in them a civic duty in the face of environmental issues. In Europe, the 2010s saw the introduction of environmental themes into the cinema. In 2011, Tom Fehlbaum’s dystopian Hell6 took over European cinemas. The film depicts a post-apocalyptic Europe where the climate has risen by 10 degrees and the sun has scorched all the land. The film is set in a specific scientific context. The fourth IPCC report, published in 2007, described the acceleration of global warming as “unequivocal”, and the 2010 Cancun Conference warned of the threats to biodiversity. A few years later, in 2015, Cyril Dion’s French documentary Demain7 was released. A film that seeks to respond to citizens’ fear of environmental challenges by proposing alternative methods of production for our societies.
Together, these European productions reinforce European citizens’ desire for action and change in favor of the environment. In 2012, film professionals and European citizens established the Film Recherche et Développement Durable association (Film Research and Sustainable Development association). The aim of this scientific culture association is to increase the visibility of ecological transition issues through the medium of movies. To this end, every year since 2014 the association has organised the International Environmental Film Festival, where various short and feature-length films from all horizons were screened. These include, for example, the Finnish film Once Upon a Time in a Forest8, in which conservationists take on the giants of the forestry industry.
Cinema is helping to inform public opinion on the environment in Europe, especially among young people, who are one of the social categories most affected by and committed to defending and preserving the environment in Europe. Around famous figures such as Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, Europe’s youth is mobilizing. As early as 2018, against the backdrop of the European election campaign, strikes and demonstrations were on the rise among young Europeans, particularly students with the Fridays for Future.
Building a coalition of actors in favour of the environmental cause
Various actors are thus influenced by cinema to act in favor of environmental preservation. Sociologically speaking, cinema acts as a tool to translate alarming scientific discourses on environmental issues to citizens. The enrollment of citizens in the environmental cause alongside NGOs and scientists within a democratic framework encourages governments and, more broadly, international institutions such as the European Union to act in line with citizens’ concerns. In this respect, one can agree that cinema is helping to build a coalition of actors in favor of the environmental cause. Cinema helps to provide a societal framework leading to the development of public policies, at national, European and international levels.
1 CAMERON, James. Avatar, 2009.
2 FLEISCHER, Richard. Soylent Green, 1973.
3 EMMERICH, Roland. The Day After Tomorrow, 2004.
4 GUGGENHEIM, Davis. An Inconvenient Truth, 2006.
5 ARTHUS-BERTRAND, Yann. Home, 2009.
6 FEHLBAUM, Tom. Hell, 2011
7 DION, Cyril. Demain, 2015
8 SUUTARI, Virpi. Upon a Time in a Forest, 2024.
