Panels, Workshops, and Talks at CFF
Nine incredible climate organizations tabling at CFF, six panels and workshops, fifteen delicious food & beverage partners, and more onsite at CFF
Three days away!
We’ve covered quite a bit on what to watch (tickets going fast!), but we’re also dedicated to making change and changing what’s made.
In this newsletter:
🌎 The Solutions Hub: Enjoy sustainable snacks and meet nine incredible organizations working on culture, education, energy, environmental justice, food, mental health, and oceans.
⭐️ The Filmmaker Lounge: Learn about climate filmmaking with filmmakers, producers, writers, and sustainability pros from HBO, Netflix, Rewiring America, Good Energy, Rare, and more.
As a reminder, get tickets here! They’re going fast: four programs are sold out, and
🌎 Solutions Hub
Join us at the Solutions Hub for conversations, snacks, and Stumptown coffee. This is a lounge area to meet with friends before or after a program and to engage with organizations doing incredible work in the climate space.
Saturday, Sept. 21
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Chat food and equity with Rethink Food, an incredible nonprofit growing a network to alleviate food insecurity. Rethink partners with restaurants to deliver 40,000+ nutritious, culturally celebrated meals per week across NYC and Miami—at no cost to communities.
Meet with Re:Dish to talk about reducing packaging waste. Re:Dish is dedicated to ensuring a sustainable future by revolutionizing the way businesses and institutions approach waste reduction.
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Get the inside track on Bard’s Graduate Programs in Sustainability with Director of Enrollment and Partnerships, Katie Boyle. Bard’s graduate programs are a great way to build a career, with the #1 Green MBA and #1 MBA for Non-Profit Management.
Dive into culture with the Entertainment + Culture Pavilion. E+C is committed to fostering community-led spaces where art, music, and storytelling come alive to fuel climate dialogues and foster a culture deeply rooted in climate action and justice.
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Spend the afternoon with CFF jury member Caleb Smith and Liz Reyes of WE ACT to talk about heat, health, and environmental justice. WE ACT’s mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and/or low income residents participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices.
Dive in to blue waters with Oceana, the largest international advocacy organization focused solely on ocean conservation. Oceana leverages law, science, grassroots activism, advocacy, and strategic communications to win policy change around the world.
Sunday, Sept. 22
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Catch Bard’s Graduate Programs in Sustainability and Director of Enrollment and Partnerships Katie Boyle if you missed them Saturday. Bard’s graduate programs are a great way to build a career, with the #1 Green MBA and #1 MBA for Non-Profit Management.
Connect with NYC’s Waterfront Alliance. After more than a decade and a half of leading the charge in how the New York metropolitan region views and uses its harbor, the Waterfront Alliance stepped into a new and critical leadership role to inform and challenge the region’s response to sea level rise and coastal storms.
12:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Unpack the moment with the Climate Psychology Alliance, a diverse community of therapeutic practitioners, thinkers, researchers, artists and others.
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Grab 1:1 time with Brock Benefiel, Director of Entertainment Partnerships at Rewiring America, and learn how you can work with them to electrify your on-screen appliances through their Electric Creatives initiative. Sign up for a time slot here!
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
[SOLD OUT] Join director Kira Akerman at her workshop on filmmaking as a classroom. Akerman has developed a documentary practice for the climate crisis through experiential learning and observation, and at this workshop, she’ll share and discuss her filmmaking process.
Food & Drink Partners:
🍫 Plant-based protein bars from Aloha
🫧 Probiotic sparkling water and kombucha from bear’s fruit
🥣 Sustainable containers and utensils from Eco-pliant
🍵 Tea from Just Ice Tea
🍯 Vegan honey from Mellody
💧 Canned water from Open Water
🍏 Healthy snacks from Precycle
😋 Plant-based charcuterie from Prime Roots
🧀 Vegan cheese from Rebel Cheese
🍽️ Reusable dishware from Re:Dish
🥗 Catering and snacks from Rethink Food
🥛 Plant-based wellness shakes from Remedy Organics
☕️ Coffee from Stumptown Coffee Roasters
🍫 Chocolate from Tony’s Chocolonely
🍷 Wine from Wölffer Estate
⭐️ The Filmmaker Lounge
The Filmmaker Lounge is a third-floor loft at DCTV, featuring our panels and workshops. Join other filmmakers and creatives to talk about climate storytelling, sustainable production, and more. Select workshops and panels will also take place in the Solutions Hub and online.
Saturday, Sept. 21
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
🌊 Telling Human Stories from Climate Frontlines: Join the visionary filmmaker Sandra Winther, director of the gripping short documentary Lowland Kids (2019), for an in-depth conversation about the urgent climate issues woven into the film—issues that remain critically relevant today. Winther will be joined in conversation by Alice Aedy, documentary filmmaker, activist, and co-founder of Earthrise.
12:30 AM - 2:00 PM
🥗 Lunch at the Filmmaker Lounge (Free): Eat, network, and make new friends over an upcycled lunch from Rethink Food. Enjoy a roasted vegetable and hummus wrap (GF) or a brown rice and quinoa salad bowl with tahini vinaigrette in a reusable grab-and-go container provided by Re:Dish. Plan on coffee from our partner Stumptown, tea from Just Ice Tea, and water from Open Water, and dessert from Tony's Chocolonely. Apply to attend.
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
✍️ [SOLD OUT] Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change: Join Good Energy for a one-hour workshop for writers, filmmakers, and industry members to explore how climate can be woven into any story, in any genre.
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
⚡️ Electrified and Fossil Free Productions: Join Rewiring America for a panel on how to approach both on- and offscreen decisions around ditching fossil fuels on screen and on set. With artist and filmmaker Lydia Pilcher and Shannon Bart, Sr. Manager, Sustainability & Productions, Netflix, moderated by Brock Benefiel of Rewiring America.
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
🌅 Inspiring Climate Action: Entertainment’s Many Pathways to Impact: Can entertainment help inspire the action we need to address climate change? Join Rare for a panel on the latest research on this topic, and discuss the varied pathways stories can take to make impact in the world.
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
🌱 Climate Cafe at CFF: Climate Cafes represent an opportunity to discuss difficult emotions that arise out of the climate crisis - everything from anxiety, fear, dread, hopelessness, and anger - in a supportive environment of peers. Climate Cafes are non-clinical, non-directive spaces where attendees can hold space for each others’ emotions without trying to fix other people. At it’s core, it can be meaningful to spend time with others who feel the same way.
Sunday, Sept. 22
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
🎞️ Putting Climate on Both Sides of the Camera: What can we do when making our next movie, TV series, or social media video to reduce our impact and emissions on set? Join Mari Jo Winkler, EP, True Detective: Night Country; Kati Johnson, EP, Bull; Heidi Kindberg, HBO; Emellie O’Brien, Earth Angel; and Stephanie Dawson, Producer for this must-attend panel.
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
🧀 CFF Filmmaker Lounge Snacks: Eat, network, and make new friends over plant-based charcuterie from Prime Roots, vegan cheese from Rebel Cheese, and other snacks from our partners. Apply to attend
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
🥂 CFF Filmmaker Lounge Reception by CEEZER: Join CEEZER for a reception in the Filmmaker Lounge at CFF. Enjoy Stumptown coffee, wine from Wölffer Estates, plant-based charcuterie from Prime Roots, and vegan cheese from Rebel Cheese at a special afternoon reception.
Monday, Sept. 23
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
💸 Crowdfunding to Build Independence (Mon. 9/23 at 12:00pm). Join Seed&Spark for an online workshop on how to have a successful crowdfunding campaign. Seed&Spark connects people through stories that matter. Since 2012, their platform has helped thousands of creators bring stories to life and to audiences via story-centric crowdfunding, free education, impact distribution, community events, and workplace programs that cultivate a culture of equity and inclusion.
CFF’s 2024 Film Festival is made possible by our wonderful sponsors: the Guardian US, SNØCAP, Universal Pictures, The Carmack Collective Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation, CEEZER, Rewiring America, Buffy Redsecker and Alan Chung, Jason and Laurie Jeffay, Seaborne, Earth Angel by TheGreenShot (Sustainability Partner), Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability, Climate Power, Sound Future, Envest, Climate Tech Cities, Pique Action, The Live/Work/Walk Foundation, and Laura Cook
Thanks also to our network of in-kind sponsors who make this festival possible: ALL ARTS (Local Media Partner), Betancourt Group, Edge Auto, Empact.fyi (Impact Partner), Entertainment + Culture Pavilion (Cultural Media Partner), The Everset, The Explorers Club, DCTV, MR. HOSPITALITY, Romanette Legal, Studio Rodrigo and Cinema Rodrigo, Version Tomorrow, and Fernanda Uribe-Horta.
And as a reminder: