HOPE! Film forum

HOPE! We're still in time is a docuseries that shows that solutions to the climate crisis already exist and are already being implemented. With a close-up and visually striking approach, it explores real stories in which communities, experts and innovative projects are building a regenerative future based on circular economy, agriculture, mobility and energy.

Each episode gives a voice to experts and local protagonists, highlighting transformative regeneration practices in areas such as the circular economy, regenerative agriculture, sustainable mobility, rewilding, energy efficiency and housing rehabilitation.

On this occasion, Episode 2: ‘Cities that care’ will be screened, exploring how design and citizen action can transform urban environments into healthier, fairer and more resilient places. Through examples from Amsterdam, Paris and Liège, and with voices such as Rob Hopkins, the episode shows how collective imagination, sustainable mobility and nature-based solutions are shaping cities that put life at the centre.

Cote Romero is an activist and professional in the energy sector. Convinced that the transitions we must undertake require the collaborative work of society as a whole, she has focused her efforts on facilitating citizen-led ecological transition processes. In line with this, she has worked as director of Ecooo for 12 years and, together with other individuals and entities, has promoted the creation of the Platform for a New Energy Model, for which she served as State Coordinator for four years. She has also been involved in stimulating and enriching forums for reflection, such as the Transitions Forum, the Renewable Energy Foundation, the Governing Council of the Progressive Economy Forum and the Energy and Society Forum. As a result of this networking, she coordinated the book Alta Tensión, hacia un Nuevo Modelo Energético (High Voltage, towards a New Energy Model). In addition to the energy transition, the necessary transitions have led her to participate in highly creative spaces as a founding member of the Teatro del Barrio consumer cooperative and promoter of the #MeCambio box to promote the Madrid Social Market. She has combined all this with energy consulting for local councils and facilitating water and energy saving projects in educational centres. She is currently leading sectoral groups and local action groups for regeneration through Hope!.

The association Butroi Bizirik was founded in 2007 in response to the environmental and heritage concerns of residents of Mungialdea. In 2012, a talk on the Transition Movement marked a turning point: they began to meet every two weeks to imagine desired futures and recognise local capacities to achieve them. Transition is understood as an optimistic and practical vision of the future, which turns crisis into an opportunity to do something extraordinary, highlighting local action as a driver of global change.

In 2013, they updated their statutes and adopted the name Butroi Bizirik en Transición, moving from a protest organisation to a proactive one, with actions extending throughout the Uribe Butroi region. Today, they have around 60 members of different ages and nationalities who work voluntarily for an eco-social transformation that promotes food, economic and energy sovereignty, prioritising the care of people and nature, towards a resilient, supportive community in harmony with the environment.

Abad is a product and space design studio located in Getxo (Bizkaia), whose work promotes a paradigm shift in our relationship with the world and the living beings that inhabit it. Its goal is to ‘recycle ecology’ through compelling narratives that imagine more desirable futures. To this end, it practises a form of design that does not seek to be fundamentalist, but rather critical, therapeutic, transformative and with a marked local, artisanal, collaborative and playful character.

Among its initiatives, Besteak stands out, exploring how to tune in to the non-human ecosystems that inhabit cities through urban design practices. It proposes new, less utilitarian and anthropocentric imaginaries to address the environmental crisis. Inspired by the symbiotic relationships in nature, it connects diverse objects with existing urban elements to create what they call ‘holobionts,’ a design that emphasises the relational aspects over stylistic ones. In the latest edition of the Concéntrico festival in Logroño, Besteak was implemented in the Plaza de la Inmaculada, a social housing space in a multicultural neighbourhood, where, together with the neighbourhood, schools and organisations, shelters for cats, birds and other living beings were built, accompanied by community co-creation activities.

The European drOp project has turned the Santa Ana neighbourhood in Ermua into a pilot area for urban regeneration focused on people, care and sustainability. Within this framework, a unique integrated regeneration methodology has been developed and tested, combining physical, social and energy interventions. In a neighbourhood built in the 1960s and 1970s without urban planning, the project has addressed issues of accessibility, lack of public space and low energy efficiency through a participatory and inclusive process. Its aim has been to activate the community and encourage collaboration and shared governance. Throughout the process, residents and local agents have defined the vision for the neighbourhood for 2035, prioritised needs, co-designed solutions and participated in their implementation. Notable results include the Ekielkar energy community, the Neighbourhood Office, and various interventions in public spaces. With its holistic and regenerative approach, drOp has turned Santa Ana into a real urban laboratory, where integrated and replicable solutions are tested that can inspire regeneration processes in other European urban contexts.

In order to regenerate cities and adapt to climate change, it is important to start with what matters most to us in order to activate our ability to organise ourselves among different groups. Under this premise, the project “Integrate NbS - improving the transformative potential of nature-based solutions”, funded by the European partnership Driving Urban Transitions, explores co-creation methodologies in urban renaturalisation processes. Researchers Violeta Furlan and Violeta Cabello Villarejo from the Basque Centre for Climate Change will share with us the work they have done with residents of the Bilbao neighbourhoods of Uretamendi and Betolaza to produce a collective map of environmental stories that tell how they have been relating to a changing natural environment since their mothers or grandmothers settled on the slopes of Mount Arraitz in the 1950s. These neighbourhoods are living examples of adaptation from which we have much to learn and which we must protect as biocultural heritage.