The cry of the planet on the big screen

RelatedWhat ecology owes Pope Benedict XVI"'Laudato Si' has been a watershed for the Church and for the world."The Time of Creation begins, a call to care for the common home

The audiovisual message is a powerful tool for reflection and social change. Through the following short films and movies, children, youth and adults can question and debate the proposal of the "The Audiovisual Message".Laudato si'"We have in our hands the loving care of the common home we share. We present here 25 audiovisual resources to take care of the environment and become aware of our common responsibility for the reality we live in. 

Small changes are powerful. It is now a universal cry, that our planet is suffering the wear and tear of an exacerbated consumption. It is true, word for word, what is stated in the "Laudato si'". The future depends on all of us and a greater effort must be made in the field of education to ensure that the men and women of tomorrow take more and more care of the earth we share. It is a change of paradigm that we are asked to make, to divert the look that revolves around my own interests, to put it on the search for a common good, which is urgent. Cinema will help us to do so.

Didactic application proposal

Each of the audiovisuals proposed here is linked to a brief excerpt from "Laudato si'". It is proposed to read it before viewing and to approach the short film or movie with that look, to then resonate with the messages that question us and push us to action!

10 short films to give breath to the planet 

The short films give us, in a few minutes, a point of light, a message that invites us to think and look for applications in my personal life, in my family, community, institution, in order to generate powerful changes. 

• Chicken a la carteI wish to acknowledge, encourage and thank all those in the most varied sectors of human activity who are working to ensure the protection of the home we share. Special gratitude is due to those who are fighting vigorously to address the dramatic consequences of environmental degradation on the lives of the world's poorest. Young people are crying out to us for change. They wonder how it is possible to pretend to build a better future without thinking about the environmental crisis and the suffering of the excluded".

• Losers2011 "The social components of global change include the labor effects of some technological innovations, social exclusion, inequity in the availability and consumption of energy and other services, social fragmentation, the growth of violence and the emergence of new forms of social aggressiveness, drug trafficking and the growing consumption of drugs among young people, and the loss of identity. These are signs, among others, that show that the growth of the last two centuries has not meant, in all its aspects, a true integral progress and an improvement in the quality of life".

• Altruism of children2013 "It is proposed to us to move from consumption to sacrifice, from greed to generosity, from waste to the ability to share, in an asceticism that means learning to give, and not simply to renounce".
• For the birds, 2013 "To the extent that we all generate small ecological damage, we are called upon to recognize our contribution - small or large - to the disfigurement and destruction of creation."
• Chain of favorsWe need a conversation that brings us all together, because the environmental challenge we are facing, and its human roots, concern and impact us all. The global environmental movement has already come a long and rich way, and has generated numerous citizen groupings that helped raise awareness"
• The Bridge, 2014 "The urgent challenge of protecting our common home includes the concern to unite the entire human family in the search for sustainable and integral development, because we know that things can change".
• Basuria, 2014 "When a vision of nature is proposed solely as an object of profit and interest, this also has serious consequences in society".
• It's smarter to travel in groupsThese actions do not solve global problems, but they confirm that human beings are still capable of positive action. As he has been created to love, in the midst of his limits, gestures of generosity, solidarity and care inevitably spring forth."

• God is a woman. God is a child, 2017 "It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human are found in the smallest detail contained in the seamless garments of God's creation, down to the last grain of dust on our planet."
• LemonSome countries have made progress in the effective preservation of certain places and zones - on land and in the oceans - where any human intervention that could modify their physiognomy or alter their original constitution is prohibited. In caring for biodiversity, specialists insist on the need to pay special attention to areas richer in species variety, endemic species, rare species or those with a lower degree of effective protection. There are places that require particular care because of their enormous importance for the world ecosystem, or that constitute important water reserves and thus ensure other forms of life".

• Equilibrium: how to live in harmony with our environmentDue to an inconsiderate exploitation of nature, [human beings] run the risk of destroying it and of becoming in turn victims of this degradation".

15 life-giving and restorative films

Cinema has the power to generate existential changes, it moves and leads to action. We propose the viewing of the following films to resonate with the characters and trace a new itinerary of care for the common home.

• Baraka, the last paradiseIt becomes indispensable to create a normative system that includes insurmountable limits and ensures the protection of ecosystems, before the new forms of power derived from the techno-economic paradigm end up sweeping away not only politics but also freedom and justice".
• Free WillyThe earth's resources are also being depredated because of immediatist ways of understanding the economy and commercial and productive activity".

• The moon live2000 "Anything that is fragile, such as the environment, is defenseless before the interests of the divinized market, which have become the absolute rule".

• Erin BrockovichThe most extraordinary scientific progress, the most astonishing technical feats, the most prodigious economic growth, if they are not accompanied by genuine social and moral progress, are ultimately turned against man".
• Wind nomadsEach community can take from the bounty of the earth what it needs for its survival, but it also has the duty to protect it and to guarantee the continuity of its fertility for future generations".
• An uncomfortable truthInequity affects not only individuals, but entire countries, and forces us to think about the ethics of international relations. Because there is a real "ecological debt", particularly between the North and the South, related to trade imbalances with ecological consequences, as well as to the disproportionate use of natural resources historically carried out by certain countries".
• Wall-e, cleaning battalionWhile "tilling" means cultivating, plowing or working, "caring" means protecting, guarding, preserving, keeping, guarding, watching over. This implies a relationship of responsible reciprocity between human beings and nature."

• A place to dream, 2011 "What a wonderful certainty it is that each person's life is not lost in a hopeless chaos, in a world governed by pure chance or by cycles that repeat themselves without meaning! "

• Bee movie, 2017″The earth precedes us and has been given to us. This allows us to answer the call."
• Mia and the white lion, 2018 "A vicious circle is often created where human intervention to solve a difficulty often further aggravates the situation."

• The boy who tamed the windThe human environment and the natural environment degrade together, and we cannot adequately address environmental degradation if we do not pay attention to causes that have to do with human and social degradation. In fact, the deterioration of the environment and that of society affect in a special way the weakest people on the planet: both the common experience of ordinary life and scientific research show that the most serious effects of all environmental aggressions are suffered by the poorest people."

• The Lion King2019 "Caring for ecosystems requires a look beyond the immediate".

• Flying together2019 "There are regions that are already particularly at risk".

• Dark waters, 2019 "But today we cannot fail to recognize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach, which must integrate justice into discussions about the environment, to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor."

• The simple thingsThere are too many particular interests and very easily the economic interest comes to prevail over the common good and to manipulate information so as not to see their projects affected".

RelatedWhat ecology owes Pope Benedict XVI"'Laudato Si' has been a watershed for the Church and for the world."The Time of Creation begins, a call to care for the common home