Planet in Focus (PIF), Toronto’s Environmental Film Festival, ended on Sunday, November 24 after a successful four-day run. The festival aims to illuminate underrepresented topics affecting our planet today through the art of filmmaking.
Screenings were held at two of Toronto’s top venues; the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Bell Light Box and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Festivalgoers were welcome to participate in gala parties, industry workshops, discussion panels, and more. PIF is in its fourteenth year, and has become a lively forum for the environmental arts community — filmmakers, activists, scientists and students — to begin effecting change.
The various topics were represented: climate change, eco-tourism, aboriginal affairs, pollution, technology, and economics. The schedule was bursting with animation films, documentaries, features, shorts, and compilations.
The festival presented two Eco Hero awards this year to filmmaker Zaccarias Kunuk and Colonel Chris Hadfield.
Rather than accepting his award in person, Hadfield chose to Skype in from Europe on an account of an expensive flight with a high-carbon impact. Most famous for publicly documenting his recent space odyssey over popular social networks like Facebook and Youtube, Hadfield was able to share unique insights from his experience at the International Space Station. In short, when you are “earth-gazing” from space, you see our small, blue planet in a frame of wonder and pure vulnerability.
John Walker’s film, Arctic Defenders, opened the festival and set the bar high for films to follow with sprawling shots of glaciers and arctic landscapes — leaving the audience awestruck. The film’s cinematography captured the pace of life in the Great White North. Through archival video footage, the audience learned of the trials and tribulations of the Native peoples. “It was like landing on the moon,” they said in the film in order to describe the Inuit’s forcible move to the North as they were plunked down as a Canadian flag in the Arctic.
PIF closed with a plea; Last Call: The Untold Reasons of Global Crisis, written and directed by Enrico Cerasuolo, refers to the first calls for sustainability in the 1970s. Based on the lives and findings of Limits to Growth authors, a team of economists, writers, political figures, and scientists — Last Call had an air of urgency. Through a series of interviews with the Limits to Growth authors, Cerasuolo ensured that the message was heard loud and clear: planet earth is finite and planet earth is exhausted.
While the subject matter at PIF is heavy at times — perhaps even burdensome, audience members cannot walk away without feeling educated, energized, and motivated to begin enacting change. The helpful staff and passionate volunteer team readily provided information for opportunities to stay engaged. Donations of all amounts were made to bring these thoughtful films to Toronto school children. According to Hadfield, education is the first step. Action and awareness can only follow understanding. As attendance climbs annually, Planet in Focus will be an irreplaceable catalyst for environmental change.
