Group, UN climate body launch foresight-focused film festival

Perry World House (PWH) at the University of Pennsylvania and Resilience Frontiers (RF) – the  foresight initiative under the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – are proud to announce the launch of a new film festival focused on short documentaries featuring stories of resilience.

“Global Lens: Visions of Resilience” will accept submissions five minutes in length or less via FilmFreeway. Using the storylines of the RF’s eight transformative pathways as a guide, films should offer a glimpse at an Earth-positive future.

“What we are hearing from young people today is that it is difficult for them to imagine a future that is not grim,” said PWH Deputy Director Michael Weisberg, who co-leads the organization’s climate work. “Part of what we at Perry World House hope to do with this film festival is to inspire people to see the future as bright—and then encourage them to make it so. We are thrilled to join with Resilience Frontiers for this festival and are grateful for their partnership on this project.”

“Filmmakers have a unique ability to open our eyes and shape our perspective of the world. And through the future-lens of the eight Resilience Frontiers pathways of transformative change, they have an opportunity to bring to life the desirable future world that the pathways create,” said Youssef Nassef, Director of Adaptation at UNFCCC and Founder of Resilience Frontiers. “So we welcome this partnership with Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, and look forward to watching the future we all want to see – and can build together – appearing on the silver screen.”

Entries open o Monday, 27 January 2025, and can be made until 1 July 2025, with no limit to the number of individual submissions. Judging will begin in July, and winners will be notified by 1 October 2025. In addition to a monetary prize, winners will also be invited to have their films screened at COP30 in Brazil in November and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

“Climate has grown into one the primary pillars of work at Perry World House,” said PWH Faculty Director Michael C. Horowitz. “Resilience Frontiers is a natural partnership for our extraordinarily policy-relevant climate work, and expanding our reach into the world of film is a natural progression for Perry World House’s engagement on the global stage.”

The year’s inaugural festival was announced at the 13th annual Penn event at the Sundance Film Festival by Peter Decherney, a PWH faculty fellow and the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn endowed term professor in Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, and PWH Executive Director Marie Harf.

“I have long advocated the use of film to communicate about science and policy,” said Decherney. “Film can add personal and human dimensions to global environmental issues. Climate and resilience are some of the most urgent challenges facing the world today, and we hope that filmmakers will take up the challenge of this festival to help us imagine a better future.”

“One of the main goals of Perry World House is to bridge the policy-academia divide, including in ways related to the arts and culture,” said Harf. “By engaging filmmakers from around the world, policymakers and academics will be able to view the challenges surrounding climate change through a new global—and often more personal­—lens.”

Perry World House’s mission is to bring the academic knowledge of the University of Pennsylvania to bear on some of the world’s most pressing global policy challenges, and to foster international policy engagement within and beyond the Penn community. It draws on the expertise of Penn’s 12 schools and numerous globally-oriented research centers to educate the Penn community and prepare students to be well-informed, contributing global citizens. At the same time, Perry World House connects Penn with leading policy experts from around the world to develop and advance innovative policy proposals.

Resilience Frontiers is a unique UNFCCC-led initiative which lets us shake off the limitations of today’s systems to think and act in ways that create a resilient, thriving future for humanity and nature. The initiative shows how, by harnessing tools like frontier technologies, indigenous knowledge, and good environmental stewardship, it is possible to continuously enrich, rather than deplete, our future world.