Global

Climate Storytelling Through the Moving Image

Swissnex, Climate Film Festival, and Fondation 2291 present a film screening and conversation exploring the power of short films to inspire climate action.

At its core, diplomacy is about communication – rendering one’s perspective intelligible to others. But participation in the diplomatic process has traditionally been limited by the bounds of human language. Could film, with its ability to express thought and feeling in ways beyond speech, be a tool of planetary diplomacy, allowing the non-human to advocate for themselves?

Swissnex, the Climate Film Festival, and Fondation2291 present Climate Storytelling Through the Moving Image, an exploration of short film as a powerful medium for communicating climate challenges and catalyzing solutions. Join us for a screening of selected short films and an engaging panel discussion, bringing together filmmakers and change-makers, educators, and researchers to reflect on storytelling techniques, diverse perspectives, and the emotional power of film to drive action for our planet.

Short Films

    Tschäggättä by Raphael Stäger

    Every winter in the Lötschental, she roams the valley: the Tschäggättä. This short documentary dives into a tradition that hovers between past and present. In a world that grows faster, louder, and more public, she stands for something that does not want to adapt — yet must. The result is an honest look at a figure that refuses to be fully grasped, and perhaps survives precisely because of that.

    NoEoN by Riu Lohri

    Nature of Emotions of Nature. This experimental short film explores the connection between us humans and the environment. Is the nature around us a reflection of our inner, human nature... or vice versa? Either way, this feedback loop suggests that by understanding and caring for one nature, we can influence and thus strengthen the other. Riu Lohri was born in Lucerne with Swiss-Japanese roots. He has a professional background as an environmental scientist, became a videographer, and creates indie short films to encourage reflection on human nature and human interactions.

    Qotzuñis by Michael Salama and Gastón Zilberman

    "The lake was our mother, our father. Now, we are orphans.” The Uru community lived in floating houses and spent weeks on their boats in the lake; hunting and fishing was their main source of subsistence. But industrial mining contaminated and diverted Lake Poopó’s tributary streams, which, along with extensive drought, caused the lake’s waters to disappear entirely by 2016. Despite its absence, the Urus continue to call themselves Qotzuñis—their ancestral word for “people of the lake."
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Tschäggättä is a winner of the 2025 Punch Prize. Initiated in 2024 by Swissnex and REFRESH, an international conference on design, arts and technology organized by the Department of Design and the Immersive Arts Space at ZHdK, the Punch Prize honors outstanding ZHdK diploma theses that innovatively address issues of ecological sustainability, the climate crisis, and the complex relationships between humans, nature, and more-than-human.

Program

  • 12:30pm – Doors open
  • 1:00pm – Welcome remarks
  • 1:10pm – Short film screenings
  • 2:00pm – Panel discussion
  • 2:30pm – Q&A
  • 3:00pm – End of event
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Event start time

  • New York

    12:30PM

Speakers

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    Bio

    Raphael Stäger

    Filmmaker

    Raphael Stäger grew up in the Bernese Oberland, where he completed an apprenticeship in media design. Following an internship at the Swiss national broadcaster, he began his studies in Cast / Audiovisual Media at the ZHdK. Alongside his studies, he worked as a freelance filmmaker focusing on documentary and audiovisual projects. His work combines social relevance with a personal style and aims to encourage reflection. Raphael’s film Tschäggättä is a 2025 winner of the Punch Prize, initiated by Swissnex and REFRESH.

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    Bio

    Gastón Zilberman

    Filmmaker

    Gastón Zilberman is a 23 year-old social and environmental storyteller based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He works on different projects with the goal of creating empathy and awareness about the consequences of climate change and human overdevelopment, especially with communities in South America. His work has been published in National Geographic, and in the Sony World Photography Awards 2024, among others.

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    Bio

    English Cook

    Co-Founder and Artistic Director
    Climate Film Festival

    J. English Cook, Ph.D. is a curator, film programmer, and author with over fifteen years of experience in the arts and museum professions. Her research engages historical intersections among architecture, cinema, and urban theory as well as contemporary film and the environmental humanities. Cook was the 2021-22 Vilcek Curatorial Fellow and a 2022-23 research assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and she has held previous positions at the Architecture Film Festival London, the Grey Art Museum, NYU, MoMA, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and the Venice Architecture Biennale. Her writing has appeared in various journals, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues, and she is currently at work as the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Climate Film Festival (CFF) NYC.

Moderator

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    Bio

    Alec Turnbull

    Co-Founder and Executive Director
    Climate Film Festival

    Alec is Co-Founder and Executive Director of CFF. He is also Co-Founder of Climate Tech Cities, the largest place-based climate tech community in the US. In his day job, Alec is an experienced executive, having worked on companies in media, renewable energy, building decarbonization, and climate finance.

Planetary Embassy

This event is part of the Planetary Embassy at Climate Week NYC, a pop-up venue hosted by Swissnex from September 23 to 25 in the East Village dedicated to international, interdisciplinary, and interspecies collaboration. The Planetary Embassy explores how we can work with the more-than-human world to address urgent and interconnected planetary crises through conversations, installations, film screenings, and more, with contributions from Switzerland, New York, and beyond.

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Partners

This event is co-organized by Swissnex, the Climate Film Festival, and Fondation2291.