The film industry is known for making entertainment. But can its stories also drive social and environmental change?
Robert Rippberger, co-founder of Social Impact Entertainment Society and producer/director of recently released film Renner, says that in fact, the highest-grossing films of all time have a message embedded in them.
He’s referring to films such as Avatar, Titanic, and Star Wars, which may not seem as impact-oriented films but they touched on important themes, all while crossing the $2 billion mark: in Avatar, the environment and natural world; in Titanic, classism; and in Star Wars, ethics.
“I want to flip the script and argue that films can make money and have impact. It doesn’t have to be either or,” he says.
That’s what inspired four accomplished filmmakers and producers to come together during the pandemic to create a hub, the Social Impact Entertainment (SIE) Society, for those in the entertainment industry who want to create impactful content — across film, television, social media, and radio/podcasts. Now, it has approximately 1500 members and last December, they held their annual gathering with former Participant Media CEO David Linde as the keynote speaker.
Rippberger and Tobias Deml, who had been friends since college and had been running Cinema for Change, connected with Rebecca Graham Forde and William Nix through the Producers Guild of America, where they had been serving on the Social Impact Task Force. All four quickly realized that their goals were the same, but they were working in silos. So they started volunteer-led SIE to bring not just their knowledge and networks under one roof, but invite others to join.
“Our core ethos is let’s create a community where all of us can come together — film, TV, games, theater, other forms of media — give them a megaphone so that the people who are doing the work, we can all rise up together,” says Forde.
Yet, the last few years have not been kind to Hollywood: a writer’s strike, a shift to streaming platforms, and fewer people going into theaters.
So the biggest question to date has been, does this kind of content make money and can it be a profitable venture for producers and investors? For example, in 2024, Participant Media, backed by businessman and former president of eBay Jeff Skoll, shut down. That was seen as the beacon of impact-driven content, producing films such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Mark Ruffalo’s Dark Waters, Oscar-winner Spotlight, and Matt Damon-starrer Promised Land. While so many of these films won accolades, and several were even financially successful, ultimately Participant did have to close its doors.
Rippberger says he’s not convinced that it was the content itself that led to the downfall. Participant was operating in a weaker market, heavy competition from streaming platforms, consolidation in the industry, and complicated economics that had hit Hollywood as a whole, he explains.
At their gathering in December, in fact, David Linde notes that while Participant may have closed its doors after 20 years, its efforts didn’t go unnoticed. “Every major studio now has executives in their creative departments to think about authenticity in the portrayal and in how they tell a story. Every agency now has a social impact arm – for a reason. Because filmmakers and their clients are asking for it. The work lives on – in either people who have identified the opportunity and come at it with a commercial background or with those that come with a social advocacy background,” he says.
Thus, Rippberger, Deml, and Forde want to dismiss the naysayers. And their approach is to hit them with case studies. Thus SIE Society has catalogued the films and projects that have worked online. They’ve coupled it with research, links to funding bodies, and relevant industry news and links.
“You don’t need to do the same research seven times over. You can do it once and then recycle it and share it with everybody. And so that’s what we’re doing. I would say, we’re streamlining the space so that it becomes more financially effective for funders. The more that this field is built, the less expensive it’s gonna be to operate,” says Deml.
Making the economic case is just as important as the messaging of the film, he adds. If it can be proven through existing models that yes, this type of content can be profitable, and here are examples to prove it, then funders will be less hesitant.
“It’s a long-held belief that this stuff doesn’t work. I would call it a prejudice. And one of these things is you can’t have impact and profit at the same time. But that’s not true.”
This effort is also not just limited to films. SIE Society would like to work more closely with social media. With massive YouTube channels such as Mr. Beast touching on philanthropy, giving back, and making a business with a purpose, Rippberger says he’d love to see SIE Society at VidCon in Anaheim.
Meanwhile Forde shares that she’s now helping launch a podcast on DNA discovery and how that can impact one’s life. “It’s reported that 23 million people have had a major DNA discovery, catastrophic to their families, uprooted relationships, et cetera. So it’s actually a epidemic and there is really no training out there. So we are launching this with the pure intent to help and educate,” she explains.
There is no one format that will fit everyone’s needs and vision. So SIE Society wants to be a meeting place for talent to figure out what do they need to push their projects forward.
“We have experts all over the place that can serve as consultants. I don’t think you have to feel like you’re alone in it either, because we want to be that community. Be it the independent filmmaker who has no money and just wants to plow through all these free resources, we don’t charge membership,” Forde adds.
But it could also be a resource for scientists and academics who have interesting data and stories but need help reaching a broader audience. There SIE can come in with the storytelling.
Ultimately, there is power in numbers, Deml argues.
“If I can get more storytellers in this sector to actually care about this kind of stuff, this can multiply really quickly. And so I think there’s just such deep conviction that when you have good solutions, but no distribution for the behavior change, you need to build that distribution, you need to build that fascination of storytelling. And there is just nothing like SIE Society out there. That’s why everybody was an archipelago; that’s why it was so inefficient; that’s why there was no connective tissue. And now we feel validated in nearly every single thing that we do.”
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