Energy Saving (Stromsparen)
Director: Kyne Uhlig, Color, 2 minutes, Germany, 2009, English
Age Guideline: Under 6
Imagination is sometimes the best source for unconventional solutions, especially when it comes to climate protection. What ideas do children have on the subject of energy saving? In this short film children were asked to express their ideas and these were then brought onto the screen with stop-motion animation.
Now You Know: Episode 13 – Recycling (Jetzt weißt du es! – Folge 13: Recycling)
Director: Ben Mazzotta, Color, 7 Minutes, Canada, 2014, English
Age Guideline: 5 – 8
Howie, a curious 5-year old boy, and his best friend, little monkey Baboo, ask A LOT of questions: How do fish breathe underwater?, What’s a rainbow?, How does an astronaut float in Space?, or Where does the water go when you flush the toilet?
This episode asks the question: Where does Recycling go after it’s picked up? Howie throws his cardboard robot in the recycling bin and wonders, “What happens to recycling after it’s picked up?” They visit engineer Derek at the city recycling plant and are shown how recycling is separated on conveyor belts and made into new products.
Password Green: Trade Batteries for Seeds – Citlalli (Contraseña Verde: Tausche Batterien gegen Samen – Citlalli)
Director: Goethe-Institut, Color, 3 minutes, Mexico 2013, Spanish with English subtitles
Age Guideline: 9-11
Citlalli is 12 years old and very concerned about the environment. She wants to do something positive for her home town. That’s why she initiates the campaign “Trade Batteries for Seeds” and invites neighbors to trade in their used batteries for bags of various plant seeds.
Show with the Mouse – Synthetic Materials from Grass (Sendung mit der Maus – Kunststoff aus Gras)
Director: Matthias Wegmann, Color, 7 minutes, Germany, 2015, German with English voiceover
Age Guideline: 9-11
Whether it’s lunch boxes, water bottles or bags – it’s not easy to think of a world without plastic. This is bad for the environment because plastic is made from petroleum. But plastic can be made even from blades of grass. The team from the Sendung mit der Maus shows an exciting invention: Green grass becomes “green plastic” – and is turned into a coat hanger.
nine-and-a-half: Man or Machine – Can Robots Soon Do More Than Us? (neuneinhalb: Mensch oder Maschine – Können Roboter bald mehr als wir?)
Director: Stefan Brand, Color, 10 minutes, Germany, 2015, German with English voiceover
Age Guideline: 9-11
How similar are the abilities of the robots to human skills? To find an answer to that question, Johannes not only looks into a robot’s head but also dares a challenge: man against machine. He dares the robot Flobi to a matching game – which happens to be the robots best skill. He also meets Momaro, who has to collect dust in a cup on an artificial moon surface. How advanced the robot techniques are will be shown in this film.
No more Nuclear Energy (Kein Bock auf Atomkraft)
Director: Kai Schmitt, Color, 10 minutes, Germany 2012, English
Age Guideline: 12-16
Without electricity, our lives would not function the way they do today – and with more people in the world in the future, who will want more computers, washing machines, televisions, and other devices, energy demand will certainly not be less. To make better use of the sun seems to be an obvious solution. To find out more on the potential of state-of-the-art solar cells, Felix visits an Energy-Efficient House in Berlin, where even the electric car gets its power from the sun. Even in the Sahara projects are underway to produce energy in the desert. What a great future it would be, if no one has to turn off the light anymore and electricity would be free for all people in the world – after all the sun shines for free.
The Energy Check (Der Energie-Check)
Director: Johannes Honsell, Color, 25 minutes, Germany 2012, English
Age Guideline: 12-16
We need energy every day so that the lights turn on in the morning, the toaster toasts and the water in the shower gets warm. Where does the energy come from, though? And what is so useful about this phenomenon? These are some of the questions reporter Can Mansuroglu aims to find answers to in this film. He visits a village that sustains itself completely on renewable energy sources such as the sun, wind, water and biogas. Here he discovers how energy is made from wind and tries to replicate the mechanism in the studio.
What is Your Personal CO2 Balance? (Wie viel CO2 verursachst Du?)
Director: Andreas Neuhaus, Color, 2 minutes, Germany 2012, English
Age Guideline: 12-16
The series Global Ideas seeks to break down complex issues regarding climate change. That's why the Deutsche Welle began a series of information films to answer some fundamental questions. In this episode the question of how much CO2 an individual person produces on average is tackled. Everything that we eat, that we do and that we buy has an own CO2 imprint and together they determine our carbon footprint. Who uses especially much and who very little is something discovered in this short film.
Clean Water for All (Sauberes Wasser für alle)
Director: Kai Schmitt, Color, 10 minutes, Germany 2012, English
No Age Guideline
How can water shortage around the world be solved in the future? On a quest for answers, Felix visits the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Studies in Leipzig. Here, researchers are working on a project that seeks to improve water usage in Jordan, one of the driest countries in the world. With the help of algae waste water processing plants, waste water is filtered and transformed into clean water. Also in the episode, Felix demonstrates the conscious and sparing use of water.
Plant-Based Chemistry for the Post-Petroleum Age (Chemiefabrik Pflanze)
Director: Anne Hoffmann, Color, 28 minutes, Germany 2013, English
Age Guideline: 17+
The world is talking about an energy revolution, but hardly anyone is mentioning a chemical revolution. However, also within the chemical industry there is an acute danger of running out of resources. The industry relies even more heavily on petroleum than the energy sector. Almost 90% of products produced in the chemical industry contain petroleum, from synthetic materials, to washing powder, to cosmetics, medicine and even color. Is chemistry without petroleum possible? The chemist and entrepreneur Hermann Fischer believes it is. For 30 years now he has argued for plant-based chemistry – they have the potential to replace petroleum products with oils, sugar, resin, starch and fibers.
Special thanks go to Andreas Klempin, Goethe-Institut Bangkok and Klara Räthel, without whose work this series would not have been possible.
solarise: a sea of all colors is Luftwerk’s site-specific response to the Garfield Park Conservatory’s historic structure and natural collection.
The film program is a cooperation with the Science Film Festival, an initiative by the Goethe-Institut in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa that reaches over 750,000 visitors in 16 countries annually.
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