In the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report, global scientists formally identified Southern African as a climate change hotspot. This means that the region is experiencing an alarming escalation of a global climate crisis that is exacerbating existing social inequalities and geographical vulnerabilities. Having read this report, the producers of HotSpot! decided to develop a documentary series that will explain why we are set to face a hotter and drier climate, threatening lives and livelihoods and rendering significant parts of our region uninhabitable within decades. In addition, this work will draw on the collective wisdom of key activists, youth, specialists and indigenous knowledge systems, that challenge existing values and questions the way we live, consume and produce.
HotSpot! is an episodic, multi-protagonist, documentary series, currently in late development/early production. The series is aimed at local and international audiences and designed for use as a tool to assist people at different levels of society to grapple with the big threat that the climate emergency presents to humanity, bio-diversity and sustainability of life as we know it in Southern Africa.
Think Pandemic, the high impact Netflix series that intertwines the stories of nine professionals in different parts of the world all connected by one quest, that of tackling the threat of global pandemics. Now imagine a similar treatment of people who are living at the forefront of the climate crisis, their daily lives impacted, either because they are activists or scientists trying to mitigate the worst effects of global warming; members of a community affected by climate related impacts; or people with convincing adaptation innovation tools or ideas that will preserve life if they can be upscaled in time.
The HotSpot! Website and interactive media campaign will be launched 2023