OPA Live! Changing Stories, Healing Climate

Host Kirsi Jansa takes over the OPA Instagram account for a live conversation with guest Cheryl Slean.

Changing Stories, Healing Climate

Kirsi Jansa, documentary filmmaker and Creatives for Climate Pittsburgh collective artist, and Cheryl Slean, California-based writer/director, will focus on storytelling as a way to navigate in the middle of and through our ecological crisis. Cheryl is working with one of the nation’s oldest environmental organizations, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) consulting with Hollywood writers and producers to “rewrite the future” – tell better climate stories. Kirsi has produced short documentaries on climate solutions and bears witness to fracking and the petrochemical build-out in Appalachia, a region where talking about the climate crisis is still taboo. What are the stories we tell ourselves that hurt us? How do we tell authentic healing stories? Read more about the Rewrite the Future project here.

About Kirsi Jansa

Kirsi Jansa is a documentary filmmaker and a climate communicator. A native Finn and a former Finnish Broadcasting Company reporter, Kirsi did her first interview on climate change in 1994. After moving to the US and Pittsburgh in 2008, Kirsi has been exploring energy production, climate crisis, and climate solutions in her short documentary series Gas Rush Stories and Sustainability Pioneers. Kirsi is a co-founder of Creatives for Climate Pittsburgh collective. More information: www.kirsijansa.com, www.sustainabilitypioneers.com, www.creativesforclimate.net.

About Cheryl Slean

Cheryl Slean is an award-winning playwright and filmmaker with a diverse academic background in physics, literature and sustainability. She’s taught filmmaking and creative writing at several universities and started a video production company specializing in narrative strategies for educational media. She co-founded the grassroots collective Vision LA Climate Action Arts to produce a multidisciplinary arts festival concurrent with the U.N. Paris Accords. She currently works with the NRDC as Creative Director of Rewrite the Future, a climate storytelling in entertainment initiative.