Cannes is going green(er).
For its 74th edition, the Cannes International Film Festival has launched a new stand-alone section focusing on climate change, featuring one scripted drama and six documentaries centered around environmental issues.
Louis Garrel’s feature The Crusade, a drama about children who come together to protect the planet, will have its world premiere in the new section. Garrel also stars in the film, alongside Laetitia Casta and Joseph Engel.
One of the documentaries gracing the new section is Above Water from Aïssa Maïga, which looks at the impact of global warming on Niger, one of the sub-Saharan African countries hardest hit by drought. Rahul Jain’s Invisible Demons, which looks at pollution in New Delhi — particularly the “invisible demons” the unseen fine particles in the air that have devastating consequences for the health of locals — I Am So Sorry from China’s Zhao Liang, which looks at the dangers of nuclear energy, and Animal from French director Cyril Dion, which focuses on the collapse of biodiversity worldwide, will also premiere in the new Cannes sidebar.
Other environmental docs that will hit the Croisette include Bigger Than Us from Flore Vasseur — a look at young climate change activists — and Marie Amiguet’s La Panthère des neiges, in which wildlife photographer Vincent Munier and the adventure writer Sylvain Tesson head to the Tibetan Plateau to try and capture, on camera, one of the most elusive big cats left in the wild.
Alongside the new program, Cannes has announced an environmental action plan to reduce waste and decrease the festival’s carbon footprint.
The 74th Cannes International Film Festival runs July 6-17.
