LEGACY, our heritage, Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s new film will be broadcast exclusively on January 26 on the M6 channel. The photographer and director emotionally tells his story and his commitment, but also draws up an alarming new observation on the state of our planet.
Eleven years after his HOME, Yann Arthus-Bertrand delivers a new cry of ecological alarm. On January 26, the photographer and director will unveil his latest film exclusively on the M6 channel, LEGACY, our heritage. A feature film, between testimony and awareness, which required more than a year and a half of work.
“It’s a very, very personal film, probably the most difficult I have had to make“, says Yann Arthus-Bertrand.”Making a film about the end of the world is complicated. And I didn’t want to make a disaster movie like the usual ecology movies […] I didn’t want to attack the lobbies, the politicians“.
“The greenhouse gas emissions, the melting ice, the loss of biodiversity… These subjects are in the media every day. We become accustomed. Words no longer have any force. They no longer affect us today. That’s why I tried to bring emotion so that we see again“, he continued.
“Let’s look at each other with open eyes”
More than a simple inventory, it is therefore a real story that LEGACY. A story told by the director himself who uses his own experience as a starting point. 40 years ago, Yann Arthus-Bertrand discovered Africa in the midst of lions and buffaloes and had “this revelation that would change his life“.
Four decades later, “this naive and utopian young man is no longer“, he confides. And it is a bitter assessment that the photographer draws up, that of a world where progress coexists with destruction, wealth with poverty and where nature is often considered as an obstacle.”Have the courage of the truth and look at each other with open eyes“, he adds.
Like HOME eleven years ago, LEGACY lets you see breathtaking images of our planet. But the film also reveals other more raw images and figures in the face of which it is difficult to remain unmoved. Evidence even of the consequences that “human success” and our lifestyles have engendered for our planet.
Climate crisis, decline in biodiversity, plastic pollution, overexploitation of natural resources and fossil fuels, overly intensive agriculture, … The problems are well known. But they are gathered here in a damning picture that recalls the connections that bind them and the impact they are going to have or already have on our own species and the environment.
Give hope with solutions
Asked about the pessimistic, even anxiety-provoking, side of his mainstream feature film, Yann Arthus-Bertrand replied: “It’s a complicated movie I admit. But frankly, I do not know a green who is optimistic. To be optimistic today is not to look at the numbers “
And to underline the importance of the message: “you have to imagine I’m 74 years old. I was green when I was 20. Have you seen what has been going on for fifty years or so? That’s crazy. I never thought 50 years ago to talk about the end of humanityHowever, the message is also hopeful.
This is why, through LEGACY, the director also wanted to evoke the solutions to act in the face of this situation. “There is so much blah blah around climate change and ecology when, in the end, the solutions are simple “, he asserts.
Simple on paper yes, but extremely complicated in practice, he admits, referring to a “change of civilization” and of “our relationship to the wild world“He does not hesitate, however, to draw a parallel with the current pandemic which has led the world to comply with certain constraints to save lives.
“Of course we won’t change the world with a film but our duty is to try“, he adds. To go further and explore precisely the solutions, a debate moderated by Ophélie Meunier in the presence of Yann Arthus-Bertrand and other personalities will follow the documentary LEGACY. They will be followed by the broadcast of HOME at 11:35 pm.
Read also :
⋙ For Yann Arthus-Bertrand, “today, the heroes of ecology are women”
⋙ 40 years of GEO: Yann Arthus-Bertrand remembers his report on lions in Kenya
⋙ How Joe Biden plans to fight climate change in the United States
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