Students are welcome to email Dr. Kelli Fuery (kfuery@chapman.edu) if they are interested in interviewing the Winners of the Human Impacts Institute’s 11th Annual Creative Climate Awards, and Tara DePorte, Founder and Executive Director of the Human Impacts Institute. Dr. Fuery will help mentor students to conduct the interviews and possible publication consideration in Film Matters. Read on for more information about the 11th Annual Creative Climate Awards and Human Impacts Institute.
Winners of Human Impacts Institute’s 11th Annual Creative Climate Awards Announced
Health and climate change-themed films It's Our Future, Message in a Bottle, and Isimo named first, second, and third place recipients at audience choice awards virtual celebration.
NEW YORK (October 25, 2021) – Human Impacts Institute (HII), a nonprofit that uses arts and culture to inspire environmental action for social good, has announced the winners of the 11th Annual Creative Climate Awards. Films from South Africa and the United States, exhibited over the past month online, at Pioneer Works and projected onto the Manhattan Bridge, took first, second and third place. Tara DePorte, Founder and Executive Director of the Human Impacts Institute made the announcement during a celebratory virtual event.
The winners are:
First Place: It's Our Future (USA) by Lukas Huffman - A short film that tells the story of New York middle school students as they engage with a coastal climate reliance curriculum. During the course of the year, the students grapple with the environmental challenges ahead of them and to understand the tools they have as future climate activists and begin to understand the tools they have as future climate activists.
Second Place: Message in a Bottle (USA) by Lisa Bloodgood/Eric Corriel, co-creators - Follows the paths and possibilities of a post-consumer plastic water bottle as it dies several deaths in search of rebirth.
Third Place: Isimo (South Africa) by Sethembile Msezane, director
- This experimental short film takes place against the backdrop of Hoerikwaggo, commonly known as Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. In the film, an ancestral matriarchal figure feels and holds the pain of the living in her womb. She diagnoses the world as we know it as being ill, disconnected from nature and in need of healing.
“The Creative Climate Awards elevate artwork that works to prevent climate change,” said 2021 program mentor John Cloud Kaiser, gallery director, Materials for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. “These awards show that art actually works better than anything else at inspiring and communicating to our citizenry about how to save our planet.”
The three winners were chosen from 14 global films and NYC-based finalists curated from an initial 540 entries from 68 countries. The award includes mentorship opportunities from top artists, curators, and international leaders, and $2000 in cash prizes from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York.
During the event, DePorte read portions of a congratulatory message from the Mayor of New York, Bill De Blasio: “We are grateful for the leadership of organizations like the Human Impacts Institute, which highlights the harmful effects of the climate crisis and promotes innovative solutions to address these challenges through events like the Creative Climate Awards. Combining art and science, these awards celebrate the work of diverse, forward-thinking individuals from across the world who are committed to defending our planet. By amplifying the thought-provoking work of cutting-edge artists and scientists, the institute educates New Yorkers, supports future environmental work, and helps to build a better, more sustainable future for us all.”
The Creative Climate Awards was presented in conjunction with HII’s Urban Environmental Health Lab (UEHL), a community hub that brings together New York City health experts with local artists to experiment with new ways to build resilience to environmental health threats and creatively connect diverse communities to equitable pollution prevention tools.
The 11th annual program was made possible with the support of ALL ARTS / WNET Group (Media); New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Pioneer Works, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, Invoking the Pause and Patagonia (in-kind). 2021 program mentors include Amy Andrieux (MOCADA), John Kaiser (MFTA), Nellie A. V. Chaban (Children’s Museum of Manhattan), Joe Harrell (ALL ARTS/WNET), Shawna Salmon (Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden), Eric Schoenborn (Virginia Tech Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology), and Lemon Guo (Recent winner of Palme D’Or at The Cannes Film Festival). For details, visit https://www.humanimpactsinstitute.org/cca2021
About Human Impacts Institute: Based in Brooklyn, New York, the Human Impacts Institute (HII) is a creative, action-oriented community of arts, policy, science, communications, and business experts committed to creating and sharing innovative approaches to tackling social and environmental challenges. Founded in 2010 by Executive Director Tara DePorte, the Human Impacts Institute sees individuals and communities as active agents of social and environmental change and leverages art, culture, and community to make environmental issues and solutions beautiful, personal, practical, and actionable. To learn more, visit www.HumanImpactsInstitute.org; follow on Twitter @HumanImpacts, on Facebook @HumanImpactsInstitute, Instagram @HumanImpactsInstitute. Hashtag: #CCA2021