Climate change is already here, and increasingly brutal disasters are headed our way no matter what we do.
But it’s not too late to avert the worst, and there is still time to change ourselves so that we are far less brutal to one another when those disasters strike.
And that, it seems to me, is worth a great deal. Because the thing about a crisis this big, this all encompassing, is that it changes everything.
It changes what we can do, what we can hope for, what we can demand from ourselves and our leaders.
It means there is a whole lot of stuff that we have been told is inevitable that simply cannot stand.
And it means that a whole lot of stuff we have been told is impossible has to start happening right away.” (Naomi Klein, “This changes everything”, 2014).
The awareness that everything has already changed and that our action is long overdue, and has to be responsible, grounded, with a viral awareness and activation of new behaviors and practices of responsible consumption is pervasive and persuasive.
This is why the role of film and audiovisual production is central, because thanks to the contamination of languages and imagination, you can create new skills, active participation and responsible action from each citizen and human being in the planet.
We must act together, aware that only a solid network of cooperation can generate strength.
Research and innovation, institutional capacity building, training of new professionals, social inclusion and Competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises are all linked to Sustainability. The increasingly central role played by the Film Commission in support of young talents, of filmmakers, video makers, businesses and local workers is strategic.
A role that is expanding and diversifying to encompass the entire supply chain in the knowledge that supporting the production can not be separated from the distribution and promotion in an international perspective.
The presence of film commissions within European networks to encourage co-productions and attract resources and foreign capital to their regions has now become essential. This is why the network of European film commissions gathered in Cagliari is the breeding ground for elaborating a plan of action and a shared code of ethics for sustainable production.
The audiovisual industry along with other creative industries is anchored to the territories where it operates and it is our duty to protect it, promote new practices and innovative meth- odologies to make the public and the private sector work together responsibly.
We must be generative and creative. Because (as Noemi Klein would put it)…This changes everything.