We recently had the opportunity to connect with acclaimed filmmaker and climate advocate Liz Courtney for a virtual interview about her latest documentary, Antarctica: The Giant Awakens. In our conversation, Liz discussed the film’s critical exploration of climate change and its implications for the future. Her dedication to both filmmaking and environmental advocacy is evident, making this documentary a compelling and urgent call to action.
What inspired you to create the documentary Antarctica: the Giant Awakens?
What inspired me to make the documentary Antarctica: The Giant Awakens was understanding that Antarctica could be the largest existential threat to climate change in the world. The Antarctic Ice Sheet, located 12,000 kilometres away from Southeast Asia and Oceania, is undergoing rapid changes that concern climate scientists in these regions. Despite Antarctica seeming like a distant
and isolated place, its melting glaciers could have severe implications for global sea levels.
Scientists are worried that Antarctica is approaching a tipping point, where the rapid retreat of glaciers could destabilize the West Antarctic Peninsula. If this happens, global sea levels could rise by 3 meters, impacting millions in low-lying areas, 80% of which are in Southeast Asia and Oceania. During my work with sea level rise scientists, I realized that many people perceive Antarctica as a remote, frozen land that is out of sight and mind. However, Antarctica, which is 20,000 times the size of Singapore and twice the size of Australia, contains 75% of the world’s fresh water. The Antarctic Ice Sheet sits on a bedrock base, where melting ice streams flow down from high mountains to form ice shelves and glaciers. Colossal ice cliffs have acted as a natural barrier along the Antarctic coastline, but these mechanisms are now being compromised.
I aimed to explore and build awareness about the climate as a total system, highlighting how one large area, Antarctica, is playing a pivotal role in influencing global changes due to warming oceans and atmosphere. These changes are causing fast-melting ice sheets and glaciers, contributing to the overall impact that large volumes of fresh water could have on ocean systems this century.
Working with the Earth Observatory of Singapore, led by Professor Benjamin Horton, we travelled to Antarctica to explore the rate of melt, the impact of sea level rise this century, and to speak with scientists about their lived experiences. We also undertook, for the first time, sampling of air microbes in the atmosphere along the West Antarctic shoreline.
Overall, my goal was to bring greater awareness and education to people, inspiring them to be part of the rapid transition needed to preserve our Earth and ensure a habitable planet for future generations. This change starts now.
How do you see the role of film and arts in driving global climate action?
Film and the arts play a crucial role in conveying the urgent need for climate action. These mediums capture the narratives we seek to explore and explain them in a highly accessible and educational manner through visual storytelling, landscapes, and the impressions recorded by our first responders on the ground. This compelling narrative can be backed by scientific data and research papers, delivering a fully engaging, interesting, and visually stimulating story to drive global climate action.
Film and the arts, as visual mediums, transform the abstract concept of climate change into tangible representations that move, educate, and build awareness about the necessity for a rapid transition to renewable energies. Without understanding, it is challenging to drive action, and without action, it is impossible to foster hope. Thus, hope and action are interlinked, and to drive action, we need to understand the underlying principles of the “why”.
In my experience, scientific reports can often be complex and challenging to understand, typically written in a language suited for those in the scientific field.
One of the vital rolls of film and arts is to bridge this gap, delivering and translating complex scientific information through visuals, animation, and accessible storytelling. This approach can explain the messages scientists are trying to share with all levels of society, including government, policymakers, big businesses, small businesses, and the entire community.
To drive change, we first need to understand the point of peril we are currently at, the short runway we have left to make significant changes, and how the climate system works in an interconnected fabric. For instance, while Antarctica might be 12,000 kilometres away from where you live, it may still be the most impactful point in the climate system and the biggest existential threat to your
future. Most people do not yet understand that the climate system operates on a 30-year lag.
Therefore, what we are experiencing now is a result of past actions, and what we do now will affect the climate between 2040 and 2050. This underscores the urgency of taking action immediately.
I hope that with greater support for the arts and film, we can build bridges, provide translations of scientific concepts, explain complex stories, and allow people to truly understand our current situation, the risks at hand, and how we can all contribute to a global solution.
What does your documentary reveal about the interconnectedness of our planet’s environmental systems?
The documentary aims to explain the interconnected elements of the climate system, particularly focusing on the ocean and the atmosphere. It highlights how the warming oceans around Antarctica are impacting the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, creating a domino effect that contributes massive amounts of freshwater into our global ocean system. Understanding this is crucial because the global ocean system relies on the mechanism of salt concentration in currents to drive important ocean currents around the world, such as those carrying warm waters from the tropics down under South Africa and up to Europe. This mechanism, for example, helps prevent Europe from being in a constant mini-Ice-Age.
As the ocean warms and glaciers and ice sheets melt, the extreme influx of freshwater into major ocean currents has the potential to slow down one of Earth’s most critical interconnected climate systems. This is due to the dilution of salt, which acts as part of the driving mechanism for ocean currents globally. This disruption or slowing of ocean current systems, could result in more extreme weather patterns, including fires, floods, and droughts globally.
Additionally, the film examines the rapid ice sheet melt occurring particularly along the West Antarctic Peninsula, emphasising why Antarctica could be the biggest existential threat to climate change this century, primarily through sea level rise. Sea level rise will affect all coastal communities around the world, of which up to 80% of these reside in across southeast Asia and Oceania.
By better understanding the rate ice melts and predicting the impact of sea level rise, island nations, coastal habitats, communities, and governments can prepare for and mitigate against these inevitable impacts before the end of the century, saving lives, supporting food production and ensuring future generations have a place to call home.
How are women contributing to the education and fight against climate change, as depicted in your film?
In this film, two key female scientists lead the way in explaining the crucial role that science plays in understanding and addressing climate change. Through data collection and field experiments, they contribute valuable information that helps build predictive models for the short, medium, and long- term impacts of climate change.
These two scientists collaborate on a groundbreaking research project: sampling air microbes along the West Antarctic Peninsula.
Their goal is to better understand how growing atmospheric river systems impact areas like Antarctica. With more moisture in the atmosphere and stronger wind systems, these atmospheric rivers are flowing faster, carrying moisture laden with microbes. As a
result, these microbes are traveling further and may be affecting the rate of change we are experiencing this century.
The documentary explores the narrative of climate change through the work of these two female scientists, illustrating the need for action. It shows how young women in science can play a crucial role in collecting and analysing data and being part of climate solutions. More broadly, it emphasizes how all women can be leaders within their families, communities, and workplaces, fostering a
nurturing approach to caring for our blue planet—the only planet that sustains life in our solar system.
Currently women make up 37% of enrolments in university STEM courses and just 17% of VET STEM enrolments. Only 15% of STEM qualified jobs at held by women globally. As the world evolves, increase awareness of the importance of science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) in our children’s everyday lives is becoming more apparent leading to future -solutions around climate change, sustainability and adaptation. I believe the current youth will step forward to be the future game-changers, providing innovative ideas, technology led solutions and there is a strong role for all genders to play in this critical moment in humanities history.
One of the emerging female PhD students on the expedition said: It is a very humbling experience, and I am very privileged to be a young female scientist being here in Antarctica and being able to look at this landscape, study it and get a better intuition for what it is like to do science here.
And for me I think, that also gives me a responsibility to share this knowledge, share my experience with other young female scientists back home and to motivate them and inspire them to do great work and to believe that they can do whatever they want to do if they put their hearts to it. We all have a role to play in solving the planets biggest crisis – Climate Change, and there are so many
avenues that young females in STEM can take to be part of the solution.
Can you share your journey from a Sydney marketing professional to a global filmmaker and climate advocate?
If anyone had told me during my early corporate years that I would end up being a film director, creating global stories around climate and sustainability, I would have had a good laugh. Yet, after nearly 20 years running public relations and communication agencies, including Ogilvy PR and partnering at Cartwright Williams before selling to Leo Burnett in the US, I found myself questioning my purpose, passion, and how I wanted to spend the next 20 years of my working life. I wanted to make a difference for my children and their future.
I always had a passion for storytelling, extending from the written word and images to moving storytelling in film and digital media. This led me to set up a small production company to make documentaries about stories that matter to communities. Along the way, I was given an incredible opportunity to direct a documentary in Antarctica with 40 teenagers, led by the famous polar explorer Robert Swan. I challenge anyone to visit Antarctica and not come back changed, especially after spending three weeks with teenagers deeply concerned about the planet’s future.
This experience inspired me to commit to developing a global series on climate change. It required nearly a year of research, two years of filming in the field, and one year of post-production.
Approximately four years of my life were dedicated to creating “The Tipping Points of Climate Change”
Through this journey, I discovered that I was far more comfortable in snow boots than stilettos. Contrary to my belief that I was always a corporate queen, I found that I was a fearless adventurer at heart, happiest on a dog sled zooming across the Arctic or on an expedition ship breaking through high waves on the Drake Passage to Antarctica. Whether being chased by cheeky monkeys in the
Amazon rainforest or exploring the polar regions, I had found my passion.
Since then, I have been working on my craft in documentary filmmaking, particularly focusing on climate and sustainability. I have also been exploring other mediums, such as podcasts, webinars, and digital formats, to convey important messages about why climate action matters, why action must drive hope, and why we must rapidly transition to clean energy sources for the sake of our
children’s future. If we don’t act now, we are failing in our responsibility to protect their future.
This trajectory has led me to create over 55 documentaries, and I was recently honoured with a global award for Women Changing the World in Media in London by the Duchess of York. My journey from the corporate world to the frontlines of climate change has been unexpected but profoundly fulfilling, allowing me to contribute to a cause that matters deeply to me and to future
generations.
And of course, films go beyond just the viewing experience, to spark important conversations. For anyone in the Western Sydney area this Wednesday (31st July), I’ve partnered with the United Nations Association of Australia in NSW for a special screening of ‘Antarctica’ accompanied by a panel Q&A, which is an opportunity to unpack and discuss the film with myself and two of Australia’s
leading climate voices, Professor Lesley Hughes of The Client Council and Youth Activist Issy Phillips. I strongly encourage anyone interested in climate to come along and join us. and encourage people to come and join us – tickets are still available.
In light of the growing climate crisis, how do you maintain hope and inspire collective action?
Maintaining hope is there any other way? We all need to maintain hope that we can turn the tide in a fight against climate change by being active in working towards solutions within our family, community, business and government.
Being very privileged to have had the lived experience in some of the most remote and most beautiful places on our blue planet, I feel compelled and very inspired to drive action through film.
Having conversations on a daily basis with people over a coffee, within my family network, my community, and policy advises about the role we all need to play to be part of the change we so urgently need now not for today but for future generations whose lives are decisions today are and will impact.
What message do you hope audiences take away from “Antarctica: the Giant Awakens”?
When people see this film, I hope that they will take away a few key learnings:
1. That the climate is a very connected system and that the oceans and the atmosphere are a coupled system that worked together and really drive the stability or instability of the climate as a system around the world.
2. That Antarctica is changing more rapidly than anywhere else on the planet and the impact it could have this century on coastal communities around the world is extreme. We need to be very mindful of how we plan to mitigate against sea level rise towards the end of this century.
3. That it is what we did 30 years ago that is currently impacting our climate system, and what we do know will be a legacy we leave for those living in 2040-2050. Our actions can and will make a difference for our children and those living in 2050.
Finally I hope the audience will feel inspired by the voice of the next generation featured in this documentary who talk about the need for action and how they are hopeful that we can all work together to drive rapid transition towards renewable energies that will future proof a blue planet and their lives.
How can people get involved in climate action after watching your documentary?
On an individual level I hope people wake up the morning after seeing this documentary and remember one key thing that we can all do which can contribute to change like:
– Eating meat one day less each week
– Not buying packaged products
– Remembering to always take their reusable tote bag with them
– Eating the fridge one night of the week and not throwing away food stores ( 40% of what we purchase in the shopping trolley goes to waste)
– Creating community fashion wardrobes with friends so you can actually share outfits especially for special events where you often only wear them once or twice in a lifetime.
– Moving to solar powered energy where possible.
– Refitting your home with low energy LED lights.
– Planting a small 3 x 3 metre rainforest in your backyard to contribute to carbon storage.
– Housing a native beehive in the corner of your garden to support biodiversity.
– Creating a family list of goals for the year to be part of the solution.
On top of this connect with groups like Parents for Climate to be part of a larger community that supports change, and leads new innovative ways to drive change. www.parentsforclimate.org
Or they can reach out to The Sustainable Sports Program, which helps recycle and reduce sporting clothes to landfill, and offers local community sports clubs a program to drive sustainable change, lead by youth and a local level.
For more information and tickets for “Antarctica: The Giant Awakens” Screening & Panel Discussion hosted by the United Nations Association NSW Division and Liz Courtney visit: https://events.humanitix.com/film-and-discussion-panel-antarctica-the-giant-awakens
SheSociety is a site for the women of Australia to share our stories, our experiences, shared learnings and opportunities to connect.
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