Pekka Kuusisto teams up with Cannes Award winning director Juho Kuosmanen for Greenpeace campaign

The renowned Finnish musician Pekka Kuusisto is today joined by the Cannes award winning director Juho Kuosmanen to support Greenpeace’s global campaign to save The Great Northern Forest with the launch of a new campaign film “The Elegy of the Forest”. You can watch the film on Greenpeace International’s Facebook page or download it here.

“The Elegy of the Forest” is launched as a part of Greenpeace’s continued campaign to protect The Great Northern Forest – the global boreal forest belt stretching from Alaska, Canada, and through Siberia to Scandinavia – from ongoing deforestation, uncontrolled forests fires and loss of biodiversity. The film has been shot in Orivesi, Finland, where heavy clearcuts have destroyed large areas of previously intact boreal forest. Greenpeace Nordic’s forest campaigner Ethan Gilbert says:

“The boreal forests around the world play a vital role in the global fight against the dangers of climate change. We need to act now if we are to save these forests from deforestation and our planet from becoming even more unstable and unsafe in the future. It is encouraging to see more artists support our work and we hope that this film and Pekka Kuusisto’s powerful performance can act as a wake up call for people around the world to take action to save this unique global ecosystem”.

Pekka Kuusisto is widely recognised as one of the leading talents among contemporary violinists, with the British newspaper The Telegraph hailing him as “having the most personal sound of any classical violinist alive”. With this collaboration he hopes his audiences will turn their attention to the important role forests have always played in our lives and in our current struggle with climate change:

“Forests have always been a source of inspiration in art, but nowadays they are becoming more and more a source of worry and sadness too, as we see that they are not treated with the respect and safeguarding they deserve. I hope that this film can help the ongoing preservation of our forests around the globe”, Kuusisto says.

The film is directed by Juho Kuosmanen, the winner of the main prize of the Un Certain Regard section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival with his first feature film “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki”. In Finland, Kuosmanen is known for his active role in supporting environmental NGOs in their work to protect forests.

“I’ve witnessed firsthand the destruction left behind by clearcuts and the lack of sustainable forestry in my home country of Finland. To work with Greenpeace and Pekka Kuusisto is a great opportunity to talk about the beauty and importance of boreal forests everywhere. These unique forests need our help now”, Kuosmanen states.

Notes

Watch "The Elegy of the Forest" film at Greenpeace International’s Facebook page or download it here.

The Great Northern Forest forms a network of boreal forests stretching from Scandinavia to Russia and all the way to Canada and the US. These forests are under constant threat from deforestation, fragmentation and uncontrolled forest fires. The Great Northern Forest stores more carbon in their plants and soil than all the tropical forests put together and thus play a pivotal role in the prevention of dangerous climate change.

More information and interview requests

Ethan Gilbert, forest campaigner, Greenpeace Nordic
ethan.gilbert@greenpeace.org

Juuso Janhunen, press officer, Greenpeace Nordic
juuso.janhunen@greenpeace.org

35840 482 5541

For press enquiries relating to Pekka Kuusisto, please contact:

Sabina Nielsen at Valerie Barber PR

Tel: 44 (0)20 7586 8560

sabina@vbpr.co.uk

www.vbpr.co.uk