Anote's Ark is the film about climate leader Anote Tong, former president of Kiribati, who is working to secure a dignified future for the population of the island state.
Kiribati is a nation located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. An archipelago isolated from the rest of the world, so far from everything and everyone that it was once thought to be immune to the upheavals and calamities that strike other parts of the Earth. Reality, however, had a completely different story in store for its people, and the island state risks disappearing forever, threatened by climate change and by rising sea levels caused by global warming melting the ice. A story that has now also become a documentary presented at the Sundance film festival 2018, entitled Anote's Ark, directed by filmmaker Matthieu Rytz and produced together with EyeSteelFilm.
Read also: Anote Tong. In gioco non c'è solo il clima, ma il futuro di un'intera generazione
Anote Tong was president of Kiribati for more than ten years (2003–2016). He was also in office during the signing of the Paris Agreement, the first treaty adopted by the entire international community that seeks to address the rise in average global temperature caused by CO2 emissions produced — in excess — by human activities. Today Tong is a full-time grandfather and continues to be the undisputed leader of this fight, in a relentless search for an alternative to what seems inevitable: he is trying to give future generations an alternative so that they can choose what to do with their lives and preserve their dignity intact when Kiribati's 33 coral atolls are no more.
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Director Rytz has woven Tong's story together with the fate of Tiemeri, a young mother of six who is trying to relocate her family to New Zealand. What is at stake is not only the survival of one family, but that of an entire generation and a culture — that of Kiribati — with over four thousand years of history. For this reason, once filming was complete, a fundraising campaign was also launched to establish a fund to support the education and schooling of seven children, the sons and daughters of one of the protagonists: Sermary Tiare. The aim is to raise 70,000 New Zealand dollars (approximately 40,000 euros) over the course of this year to secure a quality educational path for them.
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A gesture that is anything but symbolic, given that the population of Kiribati is just over 100,000 and every contribution can make a difference. Because, as Tong himself says, regardless of what governments and organisations do or say, "we will continue to sink".