Marion Cotillard took time out of her packed, project-filled schedule to talk to a group of strangers about one of her passions – educating people about our planet’s changing temperature. The French actress, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, is clearly passionate about the planet.
“We need to raise awareness because we are super smart animals,” Cotillard told a crowded room at the Alliance Française. “We can destroy, and we are very good at it. But we can also create, and we are very good at that, too. Collaborating with people like Luc is already the beginning of the solution.”
‘Luc’ is Luc Jacquet, the man sitting in a director’s chair next to her at the French Institute Alliance Française. Jacquet, the Oscar-winning director of March of the Penguins (2006), was in New York announcing his latest effort — Ice and Sky, a multi-tiered media project — produced through his nonprofit, Wild Touch. Part of the project includes an animated story about glaciologist Claude Lorius, one of the first scientists to discover that the planet’s temperature is rising. Cotillard narrated the English version of the film, which is available on the website for free.
Along with a website that offers lesson plans for educators – the material is verified by top climate researchers – Jacquet also wants to train a younger generation to help tell the story of our planet’s rising temperatures.
In OctoberWild-Touch will train youth ambassadors around ages 14 to 21 to tell climate stories as they see them on a ten day trip aboard a research vessel in Greenland. The young people will learn and use the media most interesting to them – the written word, film, social media, or video. Jacquet hopes to help launch the next generation of filmmakers.
He will busy while the project gets underway. For three months, Jacquet along with wildlife photographers Laurent Ballesta and Vincent Munier, and filmmaker Jerome Bouvier will document the effect global warming has on the southern continent’s most popular residents – the Emperor penguins. “We are going back to the land of March of the Penguins and bear testimony about what is happening now.” Their work will be shown daily in a real-time art exhibit during COP21, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to be held in Paris from 30 November to 11 December.
“We have to save this nature,” Jacquet said. “I want our children to be able to film these penguins in 20 years.”
Jacquet also recently premiered his documentary-style film, Ice and the Sky, about Lorius’s remarkable career, including rare archival footage of sixty years of Antarctic expeditions. The film brings to life the great age of exploration with Lorius and his fellow pioneers as they make break-through discoveries in Antarctica, a continent barely explored at the time. The film was selected to close the renowned Cannes Film Festival, a coveted spot. Lorius receiving a standing ovation nearly ten minutes long.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Connect4Climate, a sponsor of the Guardian Global Development Professionals Network.
