SEQUENCE 1-INSIDE, DAYTIME
CASSIEL and ASHA are sitting on one of the couches in the cafeteria of the Sorbonne Nouvelle.
CASSIEL
If I get it right, you went to a CNC conference yesterday ?
ASHA
Yes, on the sustainable industry !
CASSIEL
Soooo, that subject is a bit vague, don’t you think ?
ASHA
Yes, but the day was divided into several roundtable discussions each focused on a different issue. Two main questions unite every roundtable : how can we find
sustainable solutions to the cinema industry’s ecological footprint, and how to educate the new generations on those issues.
CASSIEL
It’s really cool that the CNC organizes that.
ASHA
Yes, and they weren’t the only ones. The ADRC, the national agency for cinema
development in regions, and the Sorbonne Nouvelle also contributed. The conference relied mainly on dialogue between researchers and practitioners.
CASSIEL
And what was the first roundtable about ?
ASHA
The first one was taking stock of the cinema's ecological footprint, and made a focus on the movie theater. By the way, if you’re interested in the evolution of film and digital techniques, my friends made a documentary about the last movie theater in France that shows film every day, and it’s in Paris!
CASSIEL
Oh cool, so it’s a bit like green media studies.
ASHA
That’s your thing ?
CASSIEL
Yes, we studied it in class. In the 90’s, the different artistic fields started to be studied under an ecological angle. It then spread to the cinema in the 2000’s.
ASHA
Precisely ! At that time, people were very interested in the scope of media texts. It was in the 2010’s to 2020 that a more global approach relying on the importance of cinema’s material footprint as well. For example, transportation represents 32% of carbon emissions. That figure includes both travel during filming and travel during distribution, to transport film reels, for example.
CASSIEL
So venues would be more ecologically responsible that streaming websites ? Since, you know, those are digital.
ASHA
Unfortunately, there are no empirical studies in the field of film on this issue. But we can draw a parallel with the field of music, where there has also been a shift in methods, from venues to digital platforms. Studies in this field show that all mediahave a carbon footprint, and that digital technology merely shifts the problem, or even exacerbates it, since digital consumption occurs at a much faster rate than the consumption of work in theaters. The conclusions are not clear-cut: some argue that digital formats are an advantage, while others show that, after examining all categories of impact, none stands out as particularly beneficial.
CASSIEL
Okay, but then what I understand is that there is no good solution. Cinema is energy-intensitive whatever we do
ASHA
No, there is always a way to limitate our impact. It begins during the production.
Laurence Allard talked about an experience she had where they made a label meaning to lower carbon emissions through various actions. For example, by carpooling and using public transportation, the production teams that took part in the challenge succeeded in reducing their CO2 emissions by 34% in the mobility category; by using secondhand materials from thrift stores or by focusing on material reuse, their CO2 emissions decreased by 22% in the materials category; and by offering a plant-based option at every meal or one vegetarian meal per week, they reduced their emissions by 40% in the food category.
CASSIEL
And for the distribution ?
ASHA
That’s the subject for the next roundtables. I will tell you more about it later on !
Translated by Mathilde Rivière