Ciné-ONU: Thank you for the Rain at the Luxembourg Film Festival

On 26 February 2018, Ciné-ONU screened ‘Thank you for the Rain’ at the eighth Luxembourg City Film Festival to underline a range of issues linked to climate change, including climate justice, urbanization, gender equality, education, access to water and climate refugees.

The film tells the story of a charismatic and resourceful Kenyan farmer @KisiluMovie, who uses a camera to show his day-to-day survival against increasingly extreme and unpredictable climate change and the devastation that it brings to his family and local community. The film was shown in partnership with Time for Equality at Ciné Utopia in Luxembourg.

The screening was followed by a dialogue on the issues highlighted in the film. The guest speakers included: Carole Dieschbourg, Minister for the Environment in Luxembourg; Nick Nuttall, Director of Communications and Outreach at the UNFCCC; moderated by Dr. Christopher Lilyblad.

The debate focused on the significance of the film with respect to our immediate responsibilities as individuals. Nick Nuttall emphasized that, “while we must not underestimate the significance of the Paris Agreement in being a new launchpad of nations coming together, we still do not have the global public fully behind this. This is critical as governments come and go, and it is, and must be in our hands to change the future.”

Carole Dieschbourg, went on to highlight that, “action by all is needed now. To put this into context, if everybody in the world lived like we do here in Luxembourg, then we would need an extra 6-8 planets. We must therefore rethink our objectives.”

Christopher Lilyblad closed the session by stressing that as poignantly shown in the documentary, we must find a way of stopping the most vulnerable from being directly affected first whilst the most powerful hold their fate in their hands. Indeed, in the film @KisiluMovie shared his one wish that, “leaders face starvation themselves to truly understand the reality of climate change.”

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 Crédit photo: Nahom Mehari