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LOS ANGELES — Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett has called for more spotlight on sustainability and green practices in the film industry.
Blanchett touched upon the topics at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) during her acceptance speech.
“In an industry that naturally recycles and reexamines ideas, I think there’s an inherent creative circularity to the way we make work,” she said.
“And as we all know, gloat and excess are the enemy of creativity. I think the piece of change we’re missing is to make work as an industry more sustainable, more circular.”
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The actress started her speech by lightly admonishing herself, “Oh God, technology,” she said, holding up a phone in her hand and quipping that she was so “disorganised” that she wasn’t able to prepare her remarks on the teleprompter, reports deadline.com.
Blanchett praised the entertainment world for being at the “forefront” of finding ways to continue operations amid the pandemic. While there were COVID officers appointed to productions, she asked: “Where are the green officers?”
At this time, her speech was briefly interrupted by the stage music that began playing to cut off long acceptances at ceremonies.
“Oh is that music? You mention climate change, and that’s what you get,” she said.
“It’s the end of a long evening folks, but — you know — it could be the end of us all,” she said.
“I think there is a moral imperative to make this switch … we are a hugely influential industry and there’s a huge financial and creative opportunity in making work more sustainably,” she said.
“So I would suggest that we seize this opportunity. I’m off my soap box now and off to the bar.”
She was feted with the honour by actress Lupita Nyong’o, who referenced her 2014 Academy Award speech, in which she pushed back against the notion that films led by women are “niche.”
“The world is round, people,” Blanchett said at the time, upon accepting her Oscar for Blue Jasmine, which Nyong’o delightfully repeated to uproarious applause from attendees.
Earlier in her speech, she spoke about the continued commitment to diverse storytelling that uplifts women.
She talked about her peers to continue in the work the women before her had done, who had “so quickly … found the industry calcified around them to exclude them.”
“We often talk about the work we’ve still got to do in the industry, and my God there’s still so much work to be done, but the industry has changed enormous amounts since I’ve stepped in it,” she said.
“And unfortunately, we do need to keep talking about the changes that we’ve made, because I think that fairness, equity and respect are not embedded into the systems that we work in.”
“We have to keep ourselves front and center. We have to keep asking questions that open locked doors and knowing our worth: knowing our worth creatively as well as financially."
"And greater inclusivity on our sets lead to less marginal and vibrant storytelling, as is evidenced by what is going on here at TIFF at this festival. I think homogeneity is the enemy of everything we make,” she added.