On Tuesday 23 May 2023 RUFA invited students from the programme in Film Arts and the Academic Master in Cinema and New Formats Production to attend a special screening of ‘Earth Protectors’, the documentary directed by Anne De Corbuccia. Produced by Art + Vibes, Minerva and Raro films. Executive producer: Max Brun.
Anne is an artist, activist and filmmaker who has developed her work through the documentation of endangered environments, species and cultures.
Her art has been exhibited in museums and public institutions throughout Europe and the United States.
She is also founder of the organisation “One planet one future“, whose aim is to draw the public’s attention to man-made threats through art, video and film and inspire people to take action.
The director connected live during the event for an open discussion with the students on the themes of the documentary.
Synopsis of “Earth Protectors”
“I want to take the viewer on an inspiring journey. I want each of us to realise that we can become a positive geological force. Our daily thoughts and actions have an impact on the planet and this makes us powerful. It means that if human beings choose to do so, we can change the future of our planet overnight.”
For the past ten years, Anne de Carbuccia, a recognised environmental artist, has been artistically portraying and documenting man-made threats and damage to the planet, such as droughts, plastic oceans, and endangered species and cultures.
Her feature-length documentary, Earth Protectors, recounts our need to adapt, as a species, to the Anthropocene: the new geological era in which man’s impact overrides natural cycles, with fires, floods, pollution, super typhoons and a deadly virus crippling the world. A planet on fire and the silent spread of a deadly disease are irrefutable evidence of the need for systemic change.
On her expeditions around the world to create her art installations, Anne meets a new generation of women and men working to save our planet and is inspired by their commitment and successes. Her narrative tells the stories and diversity of these young protagonists whom Anne calls ‘Protectors of the Earth’.
In an emotional journey across several continents, in the film we meet these ‘change makers’ who dedicate their lives to our planet and are inventing new ways and solutions to adapt.
Thus we meet Lili in Yucatán, Tashi in Upper Mustang, Dasha in Siberia, Mariasole in Italy, Alexandria in New York and Jared in the Peruvian Amazon. They are fighting droughts, protecting coral reefs, helping climate refugees and defending the Amazon. Not only that, each of them is also helping to create a new system. Together they form a collective to empower the world’s citizens, and their voices become one in the film. Providing scientific context to the obstacles encountered by these Earth Protectors is Dr Julie Pullen, an eminent earth scientist who has worked with Anne for many years. Their dialogues throughout the film provide important information and remind us of the leading role that science has to play in the journey towards adaptation.
Anne also addresses the social tensions associated with this transformative period, from climate refugees to the environmental youth movement. She weaves the stories of the Protectors of the Earth into a patchwork of stories, interviews and beautiful images. The film shows us that the threats from the Anthropocene are all interconnected and cannot be tackled individually.
Only through collective and global action can solutions be found. Earth Protectors instils hope and inspires us all to take action, reminding us that modern technology can also benefit the planet, not just harm it.
During the filming of this documentary, Anne and her crew (along with the rest of the world) face a coronavirus pandemic. This crisis accentuates the film’s themes and the importance of both our connection to the planet and trust in science.
Anne de Carbuccia
Anne de Carbuccia is a French-American environmental artist and filmmaker.
She has travelled to the most remote places on the planet to document endangered species, habitats and cultures with her art. Her mission is to raise awareness about the damage created by human beings to the planet, inspiring individual and collective action through art, educational tours, films and exhibitions. The environmental impact of her films is limited by filming with a minimal crew and offsetting emissions with a reforestation project.
In 2018, Anne wrote and directed One Ocean, a short film presented at the Venice International Film Festival. The images transport us to the fascinating beauty of the ocean, making us discover how each element is interconnected and everything is One (One) in the ‘Anthropocene’, the era of human impact on the Planet. One Ocean continues to compete at film festivals. In 2023, it will participate, among others, in the Blue Water Film Festival in San Diego and recently won the award for Best Short Documentary at the Brussels Capital Film Festival. The film has also been screened at numerous public events by international organisations such as the United Nations and The Ocean Science
Meeting. One Ocean can be viewed on demand in six languages. She wrote and directed her first feature film, the documentary Earth Protectors, released in April 2023 and distributed by Minerva Pictures International. In a journey from Siberia to the Amazon, Anne tells the stories and diversity of seven young Earth Protectors, who live the consequences of the climate crisis on the front line every day. The film tells us how the human species must adapt to the ‘Anthropocene’ and that each of us can choose to be a positive geological force.
positive geological force.
She is currently working on a docu-fiction short film entitled Refugia. The short film (15 minutes) is a poetic narrative about the science of natural environments that have facilitated the survival of life on our planet for millennia. Anne has set up the One Planet One Future Foundation in Italy and the USA. Her mission is to raise awareness of the consequences of the climate emergency and the dangers of the Anthropocene, inspiring individual and collective action through art, film and exhibitions. Through the Foundation’s educational project, Anne has developed a series of digital lectures and collaborates with universities and institutions around the world. In addition, she has been a speaker at the United Nations Oceans Conference and various institutions such as the William Alanson White Institute. In addition, she participates in mentorship programmes for several institutions such as Guggenheim and IOC-UNESCO, which appointed her as Role Model for the Decade of the Sea and member of the Ocean Literacy Expert Group.
Find out more on one planet one future
