At the CinemAmbiente Festival in Turin the films that ask for more justice for the Planet of today and tomorrow

The 26th edition of the CinemAmbiente Festival of Turin, the most important Italian event dedicated to films with an ecological theme, which, thanks to its privileged observation point, has often managed to anticipate the themes destined to enter the environmental debate of the future. The look that the event, organized by National Cinema Museum from 5 to 11 June, offers on the state of health of the planet is total thanks to a very rich programming that presents 82 films, arriving from 38 countries, representing five continents.

“Public opinion – he explains Gaetano Capizzi, artistic director of the festival – is increasingly attentive to ecological issues, green demonstrations continue to flourish everywhere, initiatives and even environmental protests are multiplying, while the situation on the planet is increasingly worrying. With this edition we have tried to give voice to the feeling that binds us to the environment: a dualism represented by a sense of awareness and alarm.”

The choice of films therefore reflects the desire to look far ahead, to identify trends and new critical issues: from the world superpowers committed to hoarding water reserves in view of the water crisis of 2030, but also fertile lands in other countries to avert the risks of desertification at home, to the new mining activities in the Eldorado represented by the depths of the oceans, from the ecological bomb of plastic pollution, to the pseudo-ecological transition of some energy multinationals.

The festival, scheduled at the Massimo cinema and in other locations until 11 June, thus offers itself in times of increasingly green washing and in which a negative wind is strengthening, not only as a cinematic appointment but also as an opportunity to take of conscience, denunciation, deepening, even scientific, of our relationship, correct or distorted, with the environment. An important opportunity for reflection.

The event is opened by the film, The Letter: a Message for Our Earthdirected by the English director Nicolas Brown and inspired by the 2015 encyclical “Laudato si'” Of Pope francesco, or rather the “letter”, addressed to all the inhabitants of the planet, with which the Pontiff addressed the issue of man’s increasingly alarming impact on the Earth. From the Pope’s dialogue with five people at the forefront of environmental defense in various parts of the world, the drama of the ongoing global environmental crisis emerges from the film.

The central moment of the festival is the competition dedicated to international documentaries which is flanked by the competitive section of short films, with 18 titles, and the non-competitive reviews of Made in Italy, now in its second edition, which photographs the growing and increasingly interesting Italian production, and that of Panorama with some important films unreleased in our country.

The 8 films in competition – documentary section:

“Deep Rising” (Tuesday 6 June, 9.30 pm, Cinema Massimo – Sala Cabiria)

It is the powerful voice of Aquaman (actor Jason Momoa) who narrates in the US documentary the conquest of the ocean floor by the major powers, in search of new exhaustible (?) resources. Deep inside are the metals needed to build batteries for electric cars. The film, directed by Matthieu Rytz, reveals the contradiction between the availability of deposits that could enormously enhance the green economy and a new exploitation of planetary resources with imponderable consequences.