31.05.2021, by Giacomo Luperini

Five days of art, science and entrepreneurship, to imagine a better future together.

Man, and the environment where he lives, are often perceived as separate, in opposition if not clashing with one another. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Collective thought can and must be pursued, with the aim to create a different approach to our planet, solve the climate crisis and strengthen biodiversity. To this end, the first ever Climate Space Film & Music Festival will be held this year in Melpignano (LE) from an idea by Ludovico EInaudi and curated by Francesco Cara and Ponderosa Music & Art: short and feature-length movies, music and debates aimed at creating an active, conscious community, projected towards a better future.

The festival, scheduled to run between June 30th and July 4th, comprises five days, each addressing a crucial global and local topic in the fight to the climate emergency. Themes pertaining to wood, energy, sea, matter and earth will be examined through the lenses of art, science, activism and entrepreneurship.

Every day will begin with a screening of carefully selected short films, both popular and lesser known, chosen for their ability to bring to life the concrete aspects of our fight against the climate crisis. This array of short movies will allow us to travel between faraway directors and stories, bringing audiences closer to their everyday lives in a rapidly changing world.

Pugliese university students will set up environmental education workshops to allow for practical, direct and play-based communication, aimed at the local middle school students.

A comparison between direct experiences, through debates and roundtables, will bring together those who use their ingenuity to fight climate issues on a daily basis. Entrepreneurs, scientific authors, associations, designers and inventors will form a cooperative community, to reflect together and propagate proactive ideas.

Murubutu and Clever Gold

Great music will accompany us every day, with artists chosen both for their activism pertaining to specific themes, and for the emotions they convey through their art. Artists such as Murubutu & Clever Gold, Lucio Corsi, Redi Hasa, Mauro Durante & Justin Adams and many more, will perform during evening concerts and provide the soundtrack to our sunset screenings.

After every evening performance (the only events for which the festival charges admission) audiences will be able to relax and enjoy feature-length movies centered around each day’s theme, specifically selected to make them reflect and dream.

The seed for this project was planted four years ago, when Ludovico Einaudi released his “Elegy for the Arctic” for Greenpeace. In the video, which became an instant classic, the famous pianist-composer plays his elegy while floating among the majestic ice giants that are melting in the Arctic Sea. Einaudi, whose approach to climate issues has always been proactive, found a worthy ally in Francesco Cara, a professor of eco-design at Milan’s IED institute, and an activist for the Climate Reality Project, working on universal right to reparation. Together with Ponderosa, they were the force behind the 2019 Climate Space “zero edition” at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme.

After the global pandemic forced it to livestream its performances in 2020, the Climate Space Film & Music Festival finally found its home in the wonderful setting of Melpignano (LE), a small yet lively community in the heart of Salentinian Greece, a veritable crossroads of cultures and local innovation. The Salento region is experiencing firsthand many of the issues raised by the festival, and fighting them on a day-to-day basis: the decrease in woodland and sylvan biodiversity, the search for alternative sources of energy and the clashes caused by the aesthetic and territorial impact of renewable energy plants. And not just that: the degradation, depletion and acidification of the sea, the search for new materials and new ways into a circular economy, the increase in monoculture, the dehydration of the soil and increase in food necessity.

The festival, organized in collaboration with Regione Puglia and Comune di Melpignano, will attempt to address five individual themes. However, in the words of festival curator Francesco Cara:

As you will see, even though we divided the program into five themes, just like in nature everything will turn out to be interconnected with everything else!

We hope our five days in Melpignano will be a source of inspiration for many new projects. What is culture, after all, if not constant recreation, modification and improvement?

Concert tickets are already on sale. You can find the full program and updates and news about the festival by consulting our “Climate Space Festival” website and following its social media.

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