Interviews

German Green Consultant Anika Kruse is a fierce protector of the environment and predicts that in the future, cinemagoers will be too. Her children will refuse to watch movies unless they know that they have been certified as green: she believes that this will become a demand of many young people, which might dramatically affect their choices as cinemagoers in the future.

Amanda Santana had no idea that one day she would launch a successful, sustainable, environmentally supportive business that would bring to light the talent and culture of indigenous artists of the Amazon Rainforest.   A makeup artist born in Rio de Janeiro, trained in Los Angeles, and working with Brazilian film and TV projects, Santana met her future business partner, anthropologist Fernando Niemeyer and, in 2010, decided to join him on a visit to one of the Amazon territories, dedicated to the Kraô nation.

25 years ago, the film about the life of the late singer Selena was released. At that time, Jennifer Lopez, who played her on the big screen, became the highest-paid Latina actress in Hollywood.

Last month, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced an additional grant of $75,000 to the New York-based non-profit organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists, targeted to help their efforts in Ukraine. Since 2017, the HFPA has granted them almost $2 million to defend press freedom worldwide and protect journalists and their right to report the news freely and without fear.

The non-profit organization Women’s Voices Now, founded in 2010, was established to drive positive social change with the purpose of advancing girls’ and women’s rights globally. The organization was built on the idea that women’s voices and their struggle for equality around the world should be supported.

In 2019, Australian filmmaker Damon Gameau produced the acclaimed documentary, 2040, structured as a visual letter to his then-four-year-old daughter Velvet to explore what the future could look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us. As Earth Day 2022 approaches, Gameau will be returning to the Gold Coast Film Festival in Queensland – where 2040 premiered - to introduce his new 17-minute short film, Regenerating Australia.

February 21 changed everything for Ukrainian actress Oksana Cherkashyna. Having screened Maryna Er Gorbach’s powerful film Klondike at the prestigious film festivals Sundance and Berlin, she was hoping that an invasion of her home  country Ukraine was not going to be a reality.

Bif&st-Bari, a small international film festival offering a broad selection of high cultural films, has vastly become one of the leading cinematic events in Italy, a jewel of a place where many artists are awarded the Federico Fellini Platinum Award for Cinematic Excellence. Journalist, film, and television critic, Felice Laudadio has a long history as cultural director in multiple Italian film festivals and is the artistic creator, founder, and director of Bari International Film Festival, which is held in four beautiful theatres, with the stunning Teatro Petruzzelli being one of the most beautiful theatres in the world.

Kyle Bowser – the Senior Vice President of the Hollywood bureau of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) – is very familiar with the acronym DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Fiercely committed to all of them, he’s still questioning where it all fits in with Hollywood today.