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Matt Damon and his fracking drama Promised Land received separate honors at Saturday’s Environmental Media Awards, held on the Warner Bros. lot.
The Environmental Media Association event honored Promised Land in the feature film category, while Damon received the EMA Ongoing Commitment Award for his environmental work. Damon is a co-founder of Water.org and has promoted access to safe water and sanitation around the world.
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“[EMA] has a really far reach and a loud voice and so much can be mitigated by changing our behavior,” Damon told The Hollywood Reporter. “To get people conscious and start thinking of resource scarcity and things like that is a pretty big step [in changing the future].”
Netflix‘s House of Cards won in TV drama category, while ABC’s Last Man Standing won for TV comedy. HBO’s Gasland Part II was won for documentary film. Other honorees included Hayden Panettiere (EMA Futures Award), Anna Getty (EMA Green Parent Award) and Bill McKibben (EMA Lifetime Achievement Award).
The Environmental Media Association was founded in 1989 by Cindy and Alan Horn and Lyn and Norman Lear. The nonprofit organization seeks to use the power of celebrity and the media to promote sustainable lifestyles. Industry decision-makers and talent alike, including Malin Akerman, Julie Bowen, Mehcad Brooks, Josh Henderson, Amy Smart, Darby Stanchfield and James Van Der Beek, showed support for the organization at Saturday’s event.
Glee’s Darren Criss opened the outdoor awards show with an acoustic version of “What a Wonderful World” that led into an evening of honoring celebrities and entertainment environmentalists for their dedication and activism for green efforts.
Executive board member Daryl Hannah presented honoree and Whaleman Foundation spokeswoman Panettiere with the EMA Futures Award, who gushed upon receiving the award from Hannah: “[She is] one of my environmental heroes.”
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“As an actor, it’s really fun to win awards, but to win an award for my work off-screen, where I spend most of my time, is extremely gratifying and humbling,” Panettiere said. “The EMAs are a rare thing where everyone sitting here cares more about the future of our world than the future of their careers.”
The Nashville starlet has consciously made activism evident in her personal life. Most notably remembered for surfing in a peaceful protest at the age of 18 to stop an annual dolphin slaughter in Japan, Panettiere and five fellow protestors were forcefully chased off with boathooks and blockaded with propellers by fisherman.
Scandal actress and children’s TV award presenter Darby Stanchfield said: “There is an infectiousness that events like this have where people care so much about what they do and who take their own individual time and really go out of their way. They’re not just slapping their face onto an organization. They’re helping found things.”
The evening concluded with a celebratory dinner, served with compostable dinnerware, a silent auction and eco-friendly giveaways for guests.
“We can’t wait for the media to [spread the word of the essential issues of our time],” Panettiere said. “Twerking is not going to solve global warming. In fact, I think it speeds it up.”
Visit the origination online at www.ema-online.org and www.facebook.com/EMAOnline.
Find the complete list of nominees below, with winners in bold and offset by an asterisk.
Feature Film:
The East (Fox Searchlight)
The Guilt Trip (Paramount Pictures)
***Promised Land (Focus Features)
Documentary Film:
***Gasland Part II (HBO Documentary Films)
Greedy Lying Bastards (One Earth Productions LLC)
Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World (Balcony Films)
TV Drama:
Castle “Cloudy with a Chance of Murder” (ABC)
Dallas “The Furious and the Fast” (TNT)
***House of Cards, Chapter 9 (Netflix)
TV Comedy:
***Last Man Standing “Mother Fracker” (ABC)
Modern Family “When a Tree Falls” (ABC)
Portlandia “Off the Grid” (IFC)
Reality TV:
Real Time with Bill Maher, Episode 1110 (HBO)
Shark Tank, Episode 415 (ABC)
***VICE “Gangs & Oil” (HBO)
Children’s TV:
Eco Company “The Big Green Bus” (Red Willow Films)
***Nick News with Linda Ellerbee “What’s the Deal with Fracking?” (Nickelodeon)
Tree Fu Tom “Tom’s Big Mess” (Sprout)
Digital Content Award co-presented with TakePart.com
***“Overview” by Planetary Collective
Producer: Steve Kennedy
Director: Guy Reid
Editor: Steve Kennedy
About: Astronauts who have seen the Earth from space have often described the ‘overview effect’ as an experience that has transformed their perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it, and enabled them to perceive it as our shared home, without boundaries between nations or species.
“Man” by Steve Cutts
Producer/Writer/Director/Editor: Steve Cutts
About: Animated short depicting humankind’s ongoing destruction of our natural resources throughout history.
Mr. President: A Plaintive Plush Plea
by Deep Rogue Ram
Created by: Heather Libby, Kai Nagata, Caitlin Dodd and Emile Scott
About: Singing puppets put pressure on President Obama to act on climate change with a smart and unique plea for the planet.
EMA Ongoing Commitment Award
***Matt Damon
EMA Futures Award
***Hayden Panettiere
EMA Green Parent Award
***Anna Getty
EMA Lifetime Achievement Award
***Bill McKibben
EMA Green Production Award
***Screen Actors Guild Awards
EMA Green Seal Award
***Screen Actors Guild Awards
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