By Tve
Published January 18, 2011
Television for the Environment and Television Trust for the Environment, a UK-registered company trading as tve, calls upon YouTube viewers across the world to cast their votes for the winner of tve’s biomovies competition that will see the winner walk away with a cool £1000 prize.
The voting is on 12 quirky, hard-hitting, subversive, witty and funny films and animations made by filmmakers and animators of a wide range of ages and nationalities – from a 14-year-old girl in north London to a lawyer in Indonesia – the 2-minute films offer a new take on one of the most critical threats to the planet’s survival, from the lighthearted and hilarious to a gritty Orwellian world.
From the UK, 18-year-old Becca Hyman said: “I entered the competition because I’m interested in film and wanted to practise my animation, and when you get the facts you realise oh, this is an actual problem that needs fixing. ”
“Plants and animals all over the world are rapidly becoming homeless. One of the main reasons for this is the destruction and degradation of our forests,” said Danish filmmaker Tim Whyte. “The good news is that we can actually do something about it. And that is what our movie is trying to show people in 90 seconds.”
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The 12 shortlisted filmmakers and animators in this year’s biomovies competition were selected from 130 submissions by a panel of judges representing WWF, Bioversity International, cult filmmakers Eddsworld and The Inlaks Foundation company chairman Azad Shivdasani.
Now it’s the public’s decision – vote for your favourite by January 31, 2011 by clicking the like button www.youtube.com/user/tveinspiringchange , and the winners will be awarded a £1000 prize.
“We knew from our success with our climate change film that there’s a huge untapped audience on YouTube for films and animations that are different and exciting,” said one of the judges, Tom of Eddsworld. tve’s first YouTube initiative, for which Eddsworld produced its stunning Climate Change animation in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit, gained more than 1 million views.
“We need these films to wake up the planet,” said tve executive director Cheryl Campbell. “A single species, humans, is determining the fate of the other 14 million – and that fate is looking increasingly bleak as more and more species vanish.
“Our biomovies show that, with humour and verve, passion and creativity, filmmakers and animators worldwide are calling on viewers to take a stand.”
The films include Food Chain, a funny, tongue-in-cheek animation from a UK competitor, the powerful Traffick Crumbs from Namibia, the whimsical Dance of the Woodland Sprite and Alternative Solutions, a black-and-white gritty assault on government by a 14-year-old from north London.
The compilation of the 12 films was shown at the closing ceremony of the UN Year of Biodiversity, in Kanazawa, Japan, on December 18, 2010.
