Environmental problems in documentary filmmaking: Exemplary director Yann Arthus-Bertrand

The 20th century, reshaping the entire world with its scientific, technological, social, and cultural changes and economic expansion, led to high-speed progress in all areas of human activity, but also to severe global problems. Handling environmental problems that have reached critical proportions and the devastating consequences of anthropogenic impacts on the environment necessitates making solutions more resilient and effective, as well as highlighting the significance of environmental education: the demand for individuals and societies to be adequately informed about current ecological problems and for environmental awareness to be created. Creating a new model of attitude towards the environment and designing preventive measures largely highlights the requirement of efficiently utilizing mass media. Documentary cinema is viewed a strong tool for addressing wider audiences with environmental problems and making them a focus of global attention. This thesis purposes to study the contribution of documentaries that underscore environmental problems to the acquisition of environmental knowledge, rooted in the decisive role of documentary cinema in fostering sensitivity towards nature and awareness of environmental problems. This study examines the documentaries 'Home' and 'Legacy' by French director Yann Arthus-Bertrand using a qualitative research approach. The selected themes have been analyzed through a critical discourse analysis, focusing on language and meaning; the emphasized words, prominent opinions, and explicitly presented perspectives are evaluated. The informative power of documentary cinema regarding environmental issues has been investigated, and the relationship between each theme, addressed from a scientific perspective, and environmental knowledge acquisition is presented built on an Environmental Education approach.