Director
Carl-A. Fechner
Carl-A. Fechner, environmental and peace activist, is an award winning director, author and environmental visionary. His films "The 4th Revolution" (2010) with Hermann Scheer, "Power to Change" (2016) and "Climate Warriors" (2018) report on the global struggle for a clean, secure and just future through decentralised, renewable energies.
Personal change is Carl Fechner's life theme. Fechner, born in Gütersloh in 1953, joined the German armed forces after graduating from high school and became part of an elite unit. During his time in the army, he studied media education in Munich and thus came into contact with film and television. Parallel to his stationing in Immendingen, he protested peacefully – although still in active service – against the NATO two-track decision and the stationing of nuclear weapons.
In 1987 Fechner began his work as a documentary filmmaker – initially for the ARD as a war reporter in crisis areas. Soon he decided not to make money out of other people's suffering and concentrated on positive news. This is how he found his way to renewable energies, which were still future technologies in the 1990s. At the same time, he stood up against nuclear power and, together with his team from fechnerMEDIA, documented on film the growing resistance to energy from nuclear fission and coal combustion.
On his worldwide travels, Fechner recognised the peace-building significance of renewables for global conflicts and the opportunity that lies in the independent supply of electricity and heat. Since then, he has been giving a voice in his films to those who work for a clean, safe and just world.
Fechner is the chairman of the foundation Protect the Planet – Society for Ecological Change. His vision is a complete worldwide conversion to renewable energies and the complete abandonment of combustion technologies. He already considers both to be technically and economically feasible without any problems – also because he has been living like this with his family for years: namely in a plus-energy house with an electric car.