Academy Award-winning actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio just produced another movie about climate change.
Called “Ice on Fire,” the new HBO documentary goes beyond the current climate crisis and presents cutting-edge solutions to reducing carbon in the atmosphere, which could potentially slow down global warming. Filming took place in Norway, Alaska, Iceland, Colorado, Switzerland, Costa Rica, and Connecticut to gain first-hand accounts from farmers, scientists, and innovators alike.
The new environmental documentary is jointly produced by DiCaprio, his father George, and screenwriter Matthew Schmid. Leila Conners –who first collaborated with DiCaprio on the 2007 docu-drama “The 11th Hour” — directs.
“The melting of the world’s snow and ice has now triggered multiple climate tipping points, especially increasing levels of methane,” DiCaprio says in the trailer. “Scientists have discovered solutions giving us a chance at reversing climate change, but the clock is ticking.”
Pro-Environmental Powerhouses
This isn’t the first time that DiCaprio, Schmid, and Conners have worked together: the trio is behind several green documentaries.
They collaborated on the 2014 series of environmental short films “Green World Rising,” produced by DiCaprio’s father. Schmid and DiCaprio worked together on the 2018 call-to-action short film “Pollinators Under Pressure.” The 2017 short film “We the People 2.0,” about environmental racism, was jointly written by Schmid and Conners.
DiCaprio the Activist
Documentary filmmaking is just one part of DiCaprio’s activism. The actor founded The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 after starring in James Cameron’s blockbuster hit “Titanic” with the mission of addressing some of the planet’s most pressing issues: global warming, wildlife conservation, and ocean preservation. Since its founding, the charity has donated more than $80 million in grants.
DiCaprio is also a friend to fellow environmentalists and conservationists, including Cameron and primatologist Jane Goodall.
“Leo and I collide mostly in the environmental circles because he’s doing a lot of good work around climate change and the environment and sustainability … we’re not collaborating directly but we sort of cross paths all the time in that world,” Cameron said last February in an interview with Us Weekly.
When Goodall was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019, DiCaprio wrote her tribute, stating that he admired her long before they ever met. “Hers is a powerful message to protect the inherent rights of every living creature, to provide hope for future generations and to sound an urgent call against the greatest environmental threat of all—climate change,” he wrote.
While DiCaprio has been mum about his diet (Moby might have revealed that “The Revenant” star may be vegan earlier this month), he is also an investor in several plant-based brands.
DiCaprio invested in chickpea-based snack brand Hippeas in 2017, dairy-free milk brand Califia Farms last July, and the first-ever vegan meat brand to go public, Beyond Meat. “Proud to be an investor in Beyond Meat, pioneering the future of protein,” he wrote in an August 2018 Facebook post.
“Ice on Fire” premieres on June 11 at 8pm on HBO.
