Flywheel Forum & Festival 2023 - Photo Contest

Unleash the power of your vision at our esteemed photo awards competition. We truly believe that transformative work deserves recognition and magnification, without bounds! Here's your golden ticket: apart from vying for a share of the $25,000 prize pool, you'll gain exclusive access to a two-day symposium alongside our revered judges, photo industry luminaries, media professionals, nonprofit funders, and devoted conservationists. Remember, our Jury doesn't limit the number of accolades — it's all about your prowess in realizing your vision. With opportunities for your artistry to be exhibited and live-streamed globally, this is your moment to show the world that your vision can indeed change it. Be recognized, be celebrated, and be amplified. Because exceptional work deserves nothing less.

In the words of writer and historian Rebecca Solnit, "Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis. This is as true of climate chaos as anything else. We are hemmed in by stories that prevent us from seeing, or believing in, or acting on the possibilities for change."

Amidst the alarming news about climate change, we must also lift up and showcase stories of hope, promising solutions, and the fact that it is not too late to change our course. We need an action plan to reach and awaken the undecided silent masses as well as policy makers, and to support storytellers and the media to focus on this global, life-threatening challenge.  We need to be focused and intentional in how we rally and engender commitments from more people and organizations.

Flywheel intends to do this in three ways:

• Film & Photo Competition & Awards.  We will invite climate related entries that feature climate catastrophes and solutions, to be judged by leading filmmakers, documentary photographers, and storytellers globally.
• The Flywheel Festival.  We will showcase award-winning films and photos by leading and new artists and storytellers in a live, 3-day Festival based in Southern California.
• The Flywheel Forum.  We will precede the Festival with a 2-day Forum of thought leaders, storytellers, investors, and media able to focus annually on determining what climate stories and solutions need telling, how to fund the stories, and how to distribute the stories on a mass scale.

Allow me to introduce you to some of the individuals who are stepping up to this crucial call and joining the Flywheel team.

Our photography and film awards program will feature some of the most influential storytellers of our time, including two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple, Academy Award winner Louie Psihoyos, National Geographic Explorers Wade Davis and Chris Rainier, Time Magazine Person of the Year 2018 Shahidul Alam, as well as past winners from previous awards I have helped initiate, such as Rena Effendi from Azerbaijan, Newsha Tavakolian from Iran, and Neo Ntsoma from South Africa.

The Awards program will culminate in the Flywheel Festival, a celebratory event taking place in California in the summer of 2024. This festival will feature nightly projections, screenings, exhibitions, action plans, music, expos, demonstrations, workshops, and lectures. We are honored to have the support of Rich Goodstone, co-founder of Superfly, which brought to life the iconic Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and the Outside Lands Festival. Additionally, Mike Lazaro, who has produced countless festivals and music gatherings in Central California over the past two decades, is backing this vision.

Lynn Luckow, who has facilitated hundreds of executive leadership programs and led over fifty nonprofit boards, including the National 4-H Council, Craigslist Foundation, and Northern California Grantmakers, will be leading the Flywheel Forum. This platform will bring together thought leaders in media, conservation, funding, storytelling, and activism to craft a solutions-oriented action plan.

Flywheel is a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit public benefit corporation, named after Jim Collins' best-selling book "Good to Great," where he describes the flywheel concept: "No matter how dramatic the end result, good-to-great transformations never happen in one fell swoop. In building a great company or social sector enterprise, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembles relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond."