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By Dan Bloom-Special to The China Post
January 16, 2015, 12:01 am TWN
Special to The China Post--In a recent Associated Press (AP) wire story about a new climate-themed genre of movies in Hollywood that was reprinted last fall in The China Post, AP wrote that “climate change is be becoming the start of more and more “cli-fi” movies.
The reporter asked readers: “Did you see 'Into the Storm' or 'Snowpiercer' yet? Both are cli-fi movies and did well at the global box office.” Climate change conscious narratives are going Hollywood, so much so that I have curated a new global Cli-Fi Movie Awards program based out of Taiwan, with a best director gong going to Darren Aronofsky of “Noah” fame, with a best actor nod to Robert Pattinson for his role in David Michod's made-in-Australia movie “The Rover.” In addition, Jake Paltrow, younger brother of Gyneth Paltrow, won a best new director award at the “Cliffies,” as the movie awards program has been dubbed, for his rookie effort with “Young Ones,” which was shot in a very dry region of South Africa. “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, AP reported. Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and a filmmaker himself, told AP in the same article that “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 added. The reporter then interviewed me in Taiwan, where I have curated and posted online the Cli-Fi Movie Awards website, announcing the 2014 winners. “Documentaries are powerful, but feature movies with film stars and vivid storytelling are also pieces of the equation,” I was quoted by AP as saying by email when interviewed for the news story. In fact, I had lobbied and proposed the story to the Associated Press last summer, and an editor in Los Angeles finally assigned a reporter in Florida to write it. Cli-fi movies can help raise awareness worldwide, through the power of cinema, both in darkened theaters full of popcorn-munching film fans and on DVDs released later. “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,” I told AP and I meant it. Cli-fi is a cultural prism, a critical prism that we need to cherish and nurture. One special Cli-Fi Movie Award that I was happy to hand out last year went to Chiu Li-wei (邱立偉), the Tainan-based director of the Chinese-language children's animated TV series, “Weather Boy!” (觀測站少年) — which has already been shown on PTS here in Taiwan. So “the Cliffies,” as I have dubbed these annual awards for the best cli-fi movies of the year worldwide, have a home in Taiwan. For best picture, the 2014 gong went to “Snowpiercer.” To see the full winner's list, which also honored “Into the Storm” and “Noah,” check the website.Dan Bloom, who coined the “cli-fi” term and launched the Cli-Fi Movie Awards last year as an annual online event, blogs about the awards at: korgw101.blogspot.com |
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