EXCLUSIVE: The three recipients of the 2023 NRDC Local weather Storytelling Fellowship have been chosen and so they have some heavy hitters of their corners as mentors.
With their initiatives on the local weather disaster, Marlee Fox, Quinn Garrett Martin and Joshua Ravenwood have been the profitable candidates out the 348 submissions final yr for the CAA, Pure Assets Protection Council, The Black Record and Redford Heart backed program. You possibly can be taught extra concerning the recipients and their respective And Away, This Gentle of Mine and S.O.S. Scoundrels of State options beneath.
Designated to concentrate on the results and looming and at the moment catastrophes of our injured pure setting, the initiatives from Fox, Martin and Ravenwood have been judged in no small half on how “compelling, constructive and inclusive” they may very well be in spotlighting the local weather disaster.
“Investing in tales that present the various faces and impacts of a climate-altered world is essential for us to course of the disaster and transfer towards motion,” stated Katy Jacobs, NRDC Local weather Storytelling Fellowship founder to Online News at this time. “We’re thrilled to assist these scripts which creatively interact with the local weather disaster on a human and emotional degree and discover characters grappling with their local weather realities.”
In that mode, every of the trio might be partnered with an “leisure trade skilled,” because the NRDC places it, to supply steerage and real-world expertise. This yr’s mentors embody Higher Issues co-creator and Emmy winner Pamela Adlon and playwright, screenwriter and longtime The Handmaid’s Story producer Dorothy Fortenberry. Moreover, greatest promoting An Untamed State creator, New York Instances contributing opinion author, and Marvel’s World of Wakanda scribe Roxane Homosexual can also be a NRDC mentor this yr.
Together with the high-profile mentors, Fox, Martin and Ravenwood will every obtain a a $20,000 grant to help in getting their options in better form. Sensible in addition to political, the fellowship additionally places the recipients in entrance of studios and companies equivalent to Hyperobject Industries, Madica Productions, Participant, UTA and WME to additional high quality tune their work.
The NRDC Local weather Storytelling Fellowship is a subsect of the 1970-founded NRDC’s Rewrite the Future undertaking. Over time, this system has joined forces with main media gamers to harness the facility of narrative to show the realities of world warming and different environmental emergencies.
2023 Local weather Storytelling Fellows and Initiatives:
AND AWAY by Marlee Fox
And Away is about within the midst of a world occasion during which Earth’s gravity slowly begins to reverse. A younger lady returns house to analyze her father’s disappearance, all whereas navigating a tenuous relationship together with her mom and a society whose perspective on weight is actively in flux.
Marlee Fox grew up in Annapolis, Maryland and skilled a childhood and early schooling inextricably linked to the Chesapeake Bay that continues to encourage her writing and environmental advocacy.
“I’m so excited to be taught and take inspiration from environmental specialists, trade professionals, and my cohort of fellows who imagine not solely within the beliefs we’re striving in direction of, however in our energy to realize them and within the worth of storytelling as a instrument in that endeavor.”
THIS LIGHT OF MINE by Quinn Garrett
This Gentle of Mine is an afro-surrealist exploration of environmental and non secular exploitation as a biracial teenager reconciles along with his lineage and identification.
Quinn Garrett Martin is a filmmaker from Los Angeles whose work strives to make fashionable mythology about our time.
“I’m excited and grateful to be part of this fellowship whereas honoring private heroes like local weather activist Hazel Johnson, the mom of environmental justice. I imagine as storytellers and tradition makers, we should discover our time’s existential and looming inquiries to enact change for a greater and extra sustainable future.”
S.O.S SCOUNDRELS OF STATE by Joshua Ravenwood
S.O.S. Scoundrels of State is a comedy set within the Seventies, and options an growing old fixer who’s fired from one in all D.C.’s most ethically-flexible regulation corporations. The fixer vows to take revenge towards his previous agency by teaming up with a gaggle of younger environmental activists who’re making an attempt to save lots of the world.
Joshua Ravenwood is a author and filmmaker who grew up on a small lake close to Detroit that was usually condemned, all through his childhood, for holding harmful ranges of poisonous waste.
“I’m honored to have been chosen for the fellowship, and am excited for the chance to be taught, to enhance my craft, and to collaborate with good individuals who have data and experiences that I’ll not have. I really imagine optimistic local weather storytelling issues, and to work with others who share that zeal is an actual blessing.”
