What emotions do documentaries on climate protection and intergenerational justice evoke? A new publication by Visions of Sustainability project director Alexa Weik von Mossner explores this very question.

In her contribution “Envisioning Intergenerational Justice: Hope, Despair, and Transformative Action in Climate Change Films”, in the anthology Cinema of/for the Anthropocene: Affect, Ecology, and More-Than-Human Kinship, edited by Katarzyna Paszkiewicz and Andrea Ruthven, Alexa Weik von Mossner analyzes two recent climate documentaries. The article demonstrates that Jim Rakete’s NOW (Germany, 2021) and Dave Davis and Mary Grandelis’ Being the Change (USA, 2018) primarily focus on generating a sense of community and positive emotions, such as admiration and hope, to inspire viewers and encourage agency, even though the films depict the path to intergenerational justice in different ways.

Further information:
Weik von Mossner, Alexa. 2025. “Envisioning Intergenerational Justice: Hope, Despair, and Transformative Action in Climate Change Films.” In Cinema of/for the Anthropocene: Affect, Ecology, and More-Than-Human Kinship, edited by Katarzyna Paszkiewicz and Andrea Ruthven. New York: Routledge.