Environmental documentary to close Cannes

A documentary about one of the first scientist to raise concerns about global warming will bring this year’s Cannes Film Festival to an end, at a closing ceremony that includes the awarding of prizes including the Palme d’Or.

Ice and the Sky, by Luc Jacquet – the director of the Oscar-winning March of the Penguins – follows the work of Claude Lorius, who highlighted fears about melting ice in the Antarctic in 1965.

Jacquet says that closing Cannes is a huge opportunity. “Showing this film in the world’s largest film festival is contributing to this huge challenge facing humanity as quickly as possible to secure its future and the future of the planet. My language is cinema. In different times, I would have made other films. But I make fierce cinema, political cinema, cinema that has no choice.”

The Festival itself says it is pleased to get engaged in the fight against climate change by programming Jacquet’s fourth film.