Catching The Sun 2015|74 min|USA Directed by Shalini Kantayya Australian Premiere
OPENING NIGHT
$35 full / $30 concession (Ticket price includes drinks and finger food at the nova bar)
Followed by panel discussion with Shalini Kantayya (Film Director USA), Damien Walsh (CEO Bank Australia), Leigh Ewbank (Friends of the Earth – Yes 2 Renewables) and Tom Quinn (Future Business Council). Panel hosted by Matt Wicking (CSL).
Presented by
Catching The Sun is a celebration of the green energy revolution and the power that new technologies, innovations and businesses have to solve the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems.
Through interwoven character dramas spanning the US and China, Catching the Sun explores the global economic race to lead the clean energy future. Featuring Obama’s green jobs advisor, Van Jones, as well as the workers of the new green world, Catching the Sun looks beyond the climate change debate and explores how a green economy may actually be built.
With countries like China investing in innovative technologies and capitalizing on this trillion-dollar opportunity, Catching the Sun tells the story of the global energy transition from the perspective of workers and entrepreneurs building solutions to income inequality and climate change.
Join industry leaders Tom Quinn (Future Business Council), Leigh Ewbank (Friends of the Earth – Yes 2 Renewables) Damien Walsh (CEO Bank Australia) and Shalini Kantayya (award winning filmmaker from the USA) and find out what Australia can learn from America about capitalising on the international race to a clean economy.
“Catching the Sun is positioning itself to become one of the most important clean-tech documentaries of our time.”
MacArthur Foundation
(Ticket price includes drinks and finger food at the nova bar after party)
Shalini Kantayya finished in the top 10 out of 12,000 filmmakers on Fox’s ON THE LOT, a show by Steven Spielberg in search of Hollywood’s next great director. The mission of her production company, 7th Empire Media, is to create a culture of human rights and a sustainable planet through imaginative media that makes real impact.
Her sci-fi film about the world water crisis, a DROP of LIFE, won Best Short at Palm Beach International, and was broadcast on national television in the U.S. and India.
A William J. Fulbright Scholar,Shalini has received recognition from the Sundance Documentary Program, IFP Spotlight on Documentary, Jerome Hill Centennial, New York Women in Film and Television, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
She is a Sundance Fellow, a TED Fellow, and was a finalist for the ABC Disney | DGA Directing Fellowship.
Damien Walsh is the Managing Director of Bank Australia.
He has more than 25 years of banking experience and was appointed CEO and Managing Director of Australia’s first ever customer owned bank in 2011.
Under Damien’s leadership, Bank Australia has been recognised nationally and internationally as one of Australia’s most successful customer owned banks.
The bank has a strong track record in the areas of corporate ethics, innovation, developing effective partnerships with civil society and government and investing its customers’ funds in ways that contribute to more resilient communities and a healthy environment.
In 2014 Damian was awarded the Richard Pratt CEO Banksia Award for his contribution and commitment to sustainability.
Damien is passionate about using the power of business to create a better world for present and future generations.
Tom Quinn is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Future Business Council, a peak business body setting the vision for a more sustainable, innovative, and ethical economic future.
He is an experienced communicator and strategist who understands the major challenges facing Australia’s economy. He has passion for helping business and government to capture the opportunities presented by the trends reshaping the world and making better business the new normal.
Tom has extensive experience in the energy and climate change adaptation sectors in Australia, and helped establish the City of Melbourne’s groundbreaking renewable energy program. He regularly writes and speaks on how Australia can create the jobs of the future with innovative, sustainable and ethical business models.
Leigh Ewbank coordinates Friends of the Earth’s Yes 2 Renewables campaign.
The Yes 2 Renewables team empowers communities to win campaigns that accelerate the rollout of renewable energy. The campaign works with communities, workers, unions, businesses, and other stakeholders to build a strong pro-renewable energy constituency that can’t be ignored.
Leigh cut his teeth helping communities fight-back against the well resourced anti wind farm lobby. This took him to Central Victoria, Canberra, and King Island where he became known as the “Vegemite Man.”
At the Federal level, Yes 2 Renewables is known for its RET Road Trip campaign that stalled the Abbott government’s attempts to axe the Renewable Energy Target.
Yes 2 Renewables has had its greatest impact in Victoria, where the group’s state election campaign secured a commitment from the Andrews-led Labor party to repeal the Baillieu government’s anti-wind farm laws. Lifting the laws has allowed the Woodend community to pursue a locally owned wind farm.
Leigh also supported the Anglesea community in their successful campaign to close the polluting brown coal power plant that operated close to homes and a primary school.
Yes 2 Renewables has led the push for a Victorian Renewable Energy Target–building a strong coalition of interest for growing renewable energy in the process.
Matt is a facilitator and sustainability consultant specialising in change, strategy and communication. He’s worked with people and organisations in all sectors – business, government, the arts, education and more – to bring about positive change.
Along with a freelance facilitation and consulting practice, Matt delivers the Centre for Sustainability Leadership Fellowship in Melbourne, and change management training with the Monash Sustainability Institute.
Matt is a passionate advocate for the connections between the personal, the political, the natural and the cultural. He is singer and songwriter with Melbourne band, The General Assembly, where his music acts as a creative, vital response to living in an unsustainable culture.
His belief in the importance of cultural change for transition have recently led him to work in the arts sector, including a role as Greenie-in-Residence at Arts House and board positions with Next Wave Festival and TippingPoint Australia.
