Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Industry Arm Puts Muscle Behind Green Film Project

variety.com:

Christopher Vourlias For the first edition of the Evia Film Project, a new initiative launched by the organizers of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the festival’s industry arm, Agora, hosted a series of events looking to bring both environmentally focused films and sustainable film production to the fore.

The program was designed to help revitalize Greece’s second-largest island, which was hit by a devastating series of wildfires last summer.Speaking to Variety ahead of the festival, Agora head Yianna Sarri stressed the importance of getting the global film community to rethink its ways of doing business in order to make the industry more environmentally friendly. “Sustainability will be in our lives and will stay there – it’s something that we must all really work hard to achieve if we want this planet to continue to exist,” she said.

At a workshop held in the seaside village of Limni, industry members from across Europe gathered to discuss best practices for green film production, drawing on the blueprint of successful initiatives such as the Trentino Film Commission’s pioneering Green Film program, which created a point-based rating system for film production and a practical blueprint for producers to adopt sustainable practices, offering certification and financial incentives for projects to go green.Trentino film commissioner Alberto Battocchi stressed that when it comes to green film production, even a modest start is preferable to no action at all. “What’s important for us is to have as many producers as possible take a first step, rather than have a smaller number of producers do the full monty,” he said. “This is something that can’t happen from one day to [the next].”Dietlind Rott, green film consultant and.