Timur Bartels | Talking about Sustainability and Ethical Issues Within the Film Industry

INTERVIEW WITH TIMUR BARTELS

When did you first become aware of the sustainability and ethical issues within the film industry? What about the music industry?

I became truly aware of these issues around the same time most people did, when the climate crisis became widely recognized. The rise of Fridays for Future and Rezo summarizing scientific voices on YouTube brought these problems to the forefront. I grew up with the idea of not being wasteful and taking care of the environment, so it’s not a new problem for my generation. However, in a capitalist system, you often fall back into the same patterns. In film production, a lot of resources are wasted initially, probably more than in the music industry, because the teams are larger, entire sets have to be built—which may be discarded later—or cars are destroyed in stunts. Even the waste of disposable cups on set is a small but significant issue. Social injustice is also very visible in the film industry, especially with the lack of inclusivity we still see on screen, making it easy to see the imbalance between genders, ethnicities, age groups, and people with or without disabilities. We are making progress toward more inclusivity, but there is still a long way to go.

What specific environmental and social impacts of film and music production have caught your attention?


The insidious nature of environmental impacts is that we don’t really see them because they happen gradually and are not immediately tangible. Social impacts are tricky because we’ve grown up with these problems, and misogyny and racism are internalized. Even though many people in the industry believe they are very open-minded (myself included), statistics show that, when it comes to things like hiring processes, we may not be as progressive as we claim or would like to be. We often still seem to ‘prefer’ white people over Black people, or those with German names over Arabic names. This is also evident in various other sectors, like the job market and housing market. Researchers like Ruud Koopmans from Humboldt University in Berlin have conducted studies that confirm this. Environmental impacts are frightening, and AI presents an emerging problem. ChatGPT consumes more energy than Bitcoin, and its usage is increasing. Social injustice, both in front of and behind the camera, breaks my heart. Germany is a country of immigrants, which is awesome, and I hope the film industry will reflect this diversity more someday.

How do you think the behavior and practices within these industries contribute to these environmental and social issues?


Films and music convey values and thus have an influence on people, sometimes even subconsciously. This responsibility should always be kept in mind and utilized if one wants to leave a positive impact. Films and songs on these topics can contribute to societal change on an emotional level. This has worked well in the past. A small example from projects I’ve been involved in: After each episode of “Club der roten Bänder,” there were thousands to tens of thousands of new registrations with DKMS to combat blood cancer.

 

What actions can filmmakers, studios, and audiences take to support a more sustainable and ethical film industry?

I think the rules that bother the industry the most are sometimes the best: clear rules with specific quotas. If a TV channel hasn’t produced enough films with BIPoC actors, they must produce one. This could be done with state funding or film grants to create further positive incentives. We need a realistic cross-section of society in entertainment that doesn’t mainly consist of white men and young women. A lot is internalized, for which we might not be to blame because we grew up in a certain societal system, but we still have a responsibility to reflect and do better in the future.

 

What are you personally doing to change the trend?

To be honest, I struggle with not being perfect. I know it’s impossible, and we shouldn’t go crazy over it because we can’t change the system on our own. Nonetheless, I find it okay to feel this way. We feel so small next to all the crises happening in the world, but we are not, and we can still be a part of change. There are things that work if we all participate. Whether it’s the small investors who drove the GameStop stock “to the moon,” shaking wealthy hedge fund managers and their clients, or the boycott of Starbucks because of its involvement in the Israel/Palestine conflict, resulting in $11 billion in losses in just 19 days. These are proofs of what many people can achieve together. People who are in the spotlight should promote or initiate the right movements. To do so, one should educate themselves as much as they can about all kinds of issues. Personally, at the end of the year, I try to calculate my potential CO2 footprint and donate accordingly to organizations like Atmosfair to offset it. It’s a small contribution to a huge problem, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

Regarding social justice in films: For my own film and series projects, which I develop with screenwriters, we often proceed as follows. We develop characters freely without constraints. In the end, we review how diverse the ensemble is. Why can’t the “law firm boss” be a 65-year-old woman? Why is the protagonist’s girlfriend 5-10 years younger and not older? Why can’t the protagonist’s “rebellious and fierce little sister” have a disability like Down syndrome? Why is almost no TV series protagonist a wheelchair user?

These impulses don’t always come to me early in the development stage because I’ve obviously also grown up with societal clichés. However, I make it my task to rethink all characters later, and this doesn’t limit my creativity. On the contrary, it opens up entirely new narrative perspectives.