Chrissy Cooper, Director
2020 | 107 minutes
A story of global importance that has already inspired numerous legal actions around the world, YOUTH v GOV is the story of America’s youngest citizens taking on the world’s most powerful government. Twenty-one courageous youth lead a groundbreaking lawsuit against the U.S. government, asserting it has willfully acted over six decades to create our climate crisis, thus endangering their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. If these young people are successful, they’ll not only make history, they’ll change the future.
Director Biography
An Emmy-award-winning cinematographer with a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and an MS in Microbiology, Christi communicates complex issues through storytelling and visual narrative to create human connection and impact around the most pressing issues of our time. She left a successful academic and research career in Europe to obtain an MFA in Science & Natural History Filmmaking (graduate thesis: Contemporary Advocacy Filmmaking: Campaigns for Change). In 2011, Christi co-created Stories of TRUST: Calling for Climate Recovery, a 10-part documentary series featuring youth plaintiffs suing their state governments over climate change, with WITNESS, a social justice/human rights organization focused on using film for social change. The campaign was used to reach decision-makers and judges who were ruling on climate litigation brought to the courts by young people. Her film awards include Wildscreen’s Panda Award for Best Campaign Film, Best Environmental Film from Backcountry Film Festival, Best Youth Film from Colorado Environmental Film Festival, and Best Made in Montana from the International Wildlife Film Festival, among others. Christi is the inaugural SFFilm/Vulcan Productions Environmental Film Fellow and the first Jacob Burns Film Center Focus on Nature Artist-in-Resident.