Interview GIRLS FOR FUTURE: “The impact of climate change is known to hit women harder”

In Senegal, nobody knows better than Fatou how much time in a girl’s life is wasted on fetching water from the well. In Australia, Sabyah tries to point her classmates’ attention to the environmental disasters they can witness everywhere around them. And Nina from Indonesia only has to look into the river to understand about the damage done by the waste processing industries. Documentary filmmaker Irja von Bernstorff offers four girls a platform to talk about their concerns. But they never point out a problem without suggesting a solution.

How do you consider yourself first and foremost, a filmmaker or an activist?

Irja von Bernstorff: I strongly believe in storytelling; empowering people through strong and meaningful narratives. In that sense I am probably first a filmmaker who hopes to provoke change through the messages that my films carry. I believe that everyone can contribute to a better world with what they do best. For now, what I do best is make films.

For you, the climate battle is intertwined with the battle for female emancipation.

Bernstorff: Even though no-one will be entirely spared from the disastrous consequences of the climate crisis, there is no denying that we already see a huge inequality in how people are affected. While the global north is only starting to realise what floods, droughts and wildfires look like, the global south has already suffered from the consequences of climate change and natural exploitation for a long time. Thus, climate change functions as a catalyst for more inequality. People whose livelihoods are not directly dependent on nature and who have easier access to resources can recover more quickly from natural disasters. The impact of climate change is known to hit women harder; they are more dependent on threatened natural resources. For example, in the case of the Senegalese girl Fatou, women and girls are traditionally responsible for providing for the family, or in her case to fetch water. Therefore, Fatou has a big disadvantage compared to her brothers since all her house chores prevent her from finding the time to study and therefor lead a more independent life.

What is it like for such young girls to approach mainly grown men, trying to convince them of their message?

Bernstorff: The Indian girl Gagan certainly pointed out that it is mostly older men around her who constantly fail her generation to provide a better future. All four girls are self-confident and strong. I am hoping that they are standing for a new generation of strong women and their confidence will not fade away as they grow up and start their own families.

Gagan always speaks her mind, Sabyah has to go against her classmates… Where do these girls find their mental strength?

Bernstorff: I always ask that myself – what makes some people rise above when confronted with threatening situations while others drown? But maybe it is time to ask ourselves if it is so special to feel responsible for your environment. Or is it maybe more strange not to do so? I think that children do not have to learn to take care of their environment or of the people around them. My daughter was deeply saddened that a tree had to be chopped down in order to build a road, and had already decided on her own, at the age of 4, that she does not want to eat animals who were killed. As we grow up, we are taught to look the other way rather than having a sense of the destruction around us.

The girls are very well updated about their cases, with numbers and statistics. How did you make sure those kids were carrying out their message in their own words and not in yours?

Bernstorff: I certainly didn’t want to impose my voice onto them, but facts and figures can summarise some quite complex problems. I didn’t want to add a voice-over; instead, I wanted to really tell the story through their eyes. We spent a lot of time discussing the facts and they would simply ask if they were not sure. The Indonesian girl Nina was, for example, extremely well informed because her parents have been working for an NGO all her life.

You have spent time in four very different locations. Which place was the toughest one for you to stay?

Bernstorff: I could not shoot in Senegal myself due to the pandemic and worked with an experienced Senegalese journalist and filmmaker. For me the most difficult place was Australia. I was there with my husband and two small kids during this incredible heat wave. In Queensland we did not allow our kids to go outdoors before 5 pm because outside the land was simply burning. At the same time, those extreme bushfires happened all around us to the point that in Sydney we could not leave the house because the smog was so heavy. But more than the natural disasters I was shocked by the societal divide. While the whole country was up in smoke, people were still discussing climate change as some kind of belief system or yet worse – they did not talk to each other anymore depending on which side they were on.

The film fits in a bigger action plan, in cooperation with several NGOs.

Bernstorff: We are following two aims with the film.

• We have edited a 4 x 25 min. series for educational purposes. Each short film features one of the girls and the specific problem they are facing. Together with HOT DOCS Canadian Int’l Film Festival’s programme “Docs for Schools” we are developing additional educational content and hope that the film will not only be shown in classrooms in Canada but hopefully around the world.
• We are about to launch an impact campaign #GirlsForFuture with its climax during a screening with young activists at the Youth Cop in Milan (organised by UNICEF) and during the COP26 in Glasgow (organised by UNICEF and GAIA).  By raising awareness, we are hoping to find people who will help support the causes the girls are fighting for. Please visit our website for more information.

Did this help you to end the film with any feeling of optimism?

Bernstorff: Yes! Having witnessed how fast change can happen when societies face a threat like the pandemic, I do have hope that we can turn things around, once we have fully grasped the magnitude of the threat posed by the destruction of our natural environment.