By Tamara Lush
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) --The giant, inflatable whale in this Gulf Coast city signals not only the arrival of one of the world's biggest documentary festivals, but also the emergence of film as a way to tell the story of climate change.
Once perhaps relegated to National Geographic and PBS features, environmentally conscious narratives have gone Hollywood. Director James Cameron and deep-sea explorer Fabien Cousteau have made their own real-life sagas, the types of documentaries that are the focus of the Blue Ocean Film Festival here. But the issues they bring to life are also finding their place on the big screen.
"Cli-fi" movies have emerged as a niche genre, taking the pomp of doomsday science-fiction flicks and mixing it with the underlying message of environmental awareness. The latest example being released Friday, "Interstellar," is a $165 million space-time saga about a last-ditch effort to find humans a new home in another galaxy. The film takes place in the near future after Earth has been ravaged by a blight that's left many food sources extinct.
The Blue Ocean event is one of several eco-festivals that have sprung up in recent years, including the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in Wyoming and the Environmental Film Festival in Washington.
"This is a call to action," said Debbie Kinder, the organizer of Blue Ocean. "It's not just about whales and fish in the sea and beautiful beaches. It's about humanity, it's about generations. It's about our future."
Opening night led with James Cameron's "Deepsea Challenge 3D," about the filmmaker's quest to dive seven miles beneath the ocean's surface into the Mariana Trench.
Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and a filmmaker himself, said that so-called cli-fi movies allow people to view a changing part of the world through the prism of an anecdote.
"It's relating the scientific part of the story in a way that people are entranced by it," he said.
Earlier in the summer, Cousteau and a team of filmmakers and scientists dove 63 feet below the ocean's surface in the Florida Keys to study what effects climate change and pollution are having on a coral reef. He documented the 31-day underwater living experiment in a film, which was shown at the festival.
"The film invites people to be part of the experiment," he said. "It's an adventure."
Documentaries are powerful, but feature movies with film stars and vivid storytelling are also pieces of the equation, said Dan Bloom, the activist credited with coining the "cli-fi" term.
Bloom cites "Soylent Green," the 1973 science-fiction film depicting a dystopian Earth coping with the ravages of overpopulation, as an early example of "cli-fi." Now, he hosts an online festival called the Cliffies that recognizes movies focused on climate change. Among the winners this year: Darren Aronofsky's "Noah" and the South Korean film "Snowpiercer," which centers around a perpetual-motion train smashing through ice and snow in a futuristic, Ice Age-landscape.
"We need to go beyond abstract, scientific predictions and government statistics and try to show the cinematic or literary reality of a painful, possible future of the world climate changed," Bloom said.
“Scandal” cast will reunite for online script reading for hurricane relief in western North Carolina
The cast of ABC's hit political drama "Scandal" may need to brush up on their snappy, speedy delivery known as "Scandal-pace," because they're reuniting for a good cause. Its stars including Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn and Bellamy Young will take part in a live virtual script reading on Nov. 17 to raise money for hurricane relief in western North Carolina.
Beginning Friday, fans can go online and donate to reserve a spot for the online reading. Proceeds will benefit United Way of North Carolina. Everyone who donates will be able to take part in a virtual pre-event with the cast and Shonda Rhimes will give an introduction.
Additional guest stars will also be announced. The online fundraising platform Prizeo is also holding a contest where one person who donates online via their site will be selected to read a role from the script with the actors. The winner should not worry about the "Scandal"-pace, assured Young over Zoom.
"Whomever the lucky reader is can read at whatever pace they want," she said.
Young, who played Mellie Young, the first lady and later Republican presidential nominee on "Scandal," was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. She came up with the idea for the effort with a friend and took it to her fellow "Scandal" actors, who all jumped on board. Young said this is the first script reading the cast has all done together since the show ended after seven seasons in 2018.
Which episode they will be reading has not been announced yet.
Young said it's "been devastating" to see so many parts of her hometown badly damaged by Hurricane Helene, which ravaged western North Carolina one month ago.
To research the best use for donations, Young spoke with numerous political leaders, including North... Read More