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Logline

Together, we can change the climate story.

Synopsis

Amidst the alarming news about climate change, we must also lift up and showcase stories of hope, promising solutions, and the fact that it is not too late to change our course. We need an action plan to reach and awaken the undecided silent masses as well as policy makers, and to support storytellers and the media to focus on this global, life-threatening challenge. We need to be focused and intentional in how we rally and engender commitments from more people and organizations.

Flywheel intends to do this in three ways:

• Film & Photo Competition & Awards. We will invite climate related entries that feature climate catastrophes and solutions, to be judged by leading filmmakers, documentary photographers, and storytellers globally.
• The Flywheel Festival. We will showcase award-winning films and photos by leading and new artists and storytellers in a live, 3-day Festival based in Southern California.
• The Flywheel Forum. We will precede the Festival with a 2-day Forum of thought leaders, storytellers, investors, and media able to focus annually on determining what climate stories and solutions need telling, how to fund the stories, and how to distribute the stories on a mass scale.

The Awards program will culminate in the Flywheel Festival, a celebratory event taking place in California in the summer of 2024. This festival will feature nightly projections, screenings, exhibitions, action plans, music, expos, demonstrations, workshops, and lectures.

Meet the Filmmakers

Lynn Luckow – Forum Director
Lynn Luckow, who has facilitated hundreds of executive leadership programs and led over fifty nonprofit boards, including the National 4-H Council, Craigslist Foundation, and Northern California Grantmakers, will be leading the Flywheel Forum. This platform will bring together thought leaders in media, conservation, funding, storytelling, and activism to craft a solutions-oriented action plan.

Barbara Kopple – Judge
Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award® winning filmmaker. A director of documentaries, as well as narrative TV and film, Barbara has been awarded the Human Rights Watch Film Festival Irene Diamond Award, Los Angeles Film Critics Award, National Society of Film Critics Award, the SilverDocs/Charles Guggenheim Award, New York Women in Film & Television Muse Award, the Maya Deren Independent Film and Video Award, the Woodstock Film Festival Maverick Award, Women in Film & Video of Washington, DC Women of Vision Award, the White House Project’s EPIC Award, the International Documentary Association Career Achievement Award, the San Francisco Film Society’s Persistence of Vision Award and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Filmmakers Trophy & Audience Award.

Louie Psihoyos – Judge
Louie is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and Executive Director of the Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS). Louie’s first documentary film, The Cove, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Film of 2009 and over 75 other awards around the world. His second film, Racing Extinction, follows a team of artists and activists as they expose the hidden world of extinction with never-before-seen images. The film premiered on Discovery in 220 countries and territories on the same day, was nominated for an Emmy (Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking) and an Academy-Award (Best Song), and sparked the #StartWith1Thing movement.

Andy Patrick – Producer

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact fiscalsponsorship@filmindependent.org.