Dunedin filmmakers make splash at Reel Earth

Dunedin filmmakers make splash at Reel Earth

A fledgling Dunedin production company received big accolades at the Southern Hemisphere’s premiere environmental film festival on the weekend. Splashroom Media’s Jinty MacTavish (24) and Nick Holmes (22) accepted two major awards on Saturday night at the Gala Opening of Reel Earth in Palmerston North.

Jinty’s film Lessons from a Melting Icecap picked up the Spinning Planet Award for Best New Zealand Film Award. Lessons follows the journey of three Otago Girls’ High School students on a journey from Dunedin to Greenland, where they come face to face with the impacts climate change is having on the physical environment, and on life in its settlements. It’s a story that takes the huge, intangible issue of climate change and gives it a human face – a young, hopeful and very Kiwi one.

Nick Holmes was awarded Runner Up in the same category for the short film Smoking Kills – a five minute exploration of the impact of discarded cigarette butts on the environment. The film is Nick’s first.

Jinty is delighted with her award. “Anything that helps get the issue of climate change on the public radar this year is fantastic. We’re at the point where the science is telling us we have one last opportunity - the United Nation’s climate change conference in Copenhagen in December – to avert catastrophic climate change. Hopefully the story of the girls’ journey will inspire people to demand global action by getting involved in campaigns like 350.org, in the lead up to December’s negotiations.’

350.org will be the focus of Nick’s next project. Nick and fellow Splashroom filmmaker Guy Ryan are working on their Masters film, Instruments of Change (working title), set for release in November. The pair hope to empower youth to take positive action on local climate change issues. ‘Rather than focusing on the negatives, energy directed towards positive solutions is the best way forward’, says Nick.

Lessons is set for release as a climate change teaching resource in New Zealand’s secondary schools, later in the year. ‘I find it incredible that climate change is not at the centre of New Zealand’s school curriculum, given the massive impact it’s going to have on young Kiwis in years to come’, says Jinty. ‘If today’s teens aren’t receiving basic education on this issue now, in a way that empowers them to take action, how will they cope when they’re faced with one metre of sea level rise?’

Two other Splashroom Media films – Guy Ryan’s Ti Kouka, and Iain Frengley’s Theft – were also shortlisted in the Best New Zealand Film category at Reel Earth.

Both winning films were produced as part of the University of Otago’s Masters in Natural History Filmmaking, and the production of Lessons was supported by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

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