During her acceptance speech for the Toronto International Film Festival Share Her Journey Groundbreaker Award, Cate Blanchett called for an increased focus on sustainability and green practices in the film industry, as well as a continued commitment to varied storytelling that uplifts women. “In an industry that naturally recycles and reexamines ideas, I think there’s an inherent creative circularity to the way we make work,” she said. “And as we all know, gloat and excess are the enemy of creativity.
I think the piece of change we’re missing is to make work as an industry more sustainable, more circular.” The Carol star began her speech by lightly admonishing herself — “Oh God, technology,” she said — holding up a phone in her hand and joking that she was so “disorganized” that she wasn’t able to prepare her remarks on the teleprompter. With her words at the TIFF Tribute Awards at the Royal York, presented by Joanna Griffiths and the women of Knix, she praised the entertainment world for being at the “forefront” of finding ways to continue operations amid the pandemic.
While there were COVID officers appointed to productions, she asked, “Where are the green officers?” At this time, her speech was briefly interrupted by the stage music that began playing to cut off long acceptances at ceremonies. “Oh is that music?” she said, looking around and briefly confused as the audience chuckled. “You mention climate change, and that’s what yo.